You are currently browsing the monthly archive for December 2006.
Check out the awful children in this commercial for a local skate shop. They could show the exact same thing with a tagline like “Birth Control. Think About It.” with no loss of meaning, eh?
Hope your little ones are the angels you remember yourself being on Christmases past, despite the pounds and pounds of sugar coursing through your tiny body.
Merry Christmas!
The other week, I went to see Stranger than Fiction which I enjoyed very much. It is the odd story of a man (Will Ferrell) who first discovers that his life is being narrated by an author (Emma Thompson) and then discovers that she plans to kill him off at the end of her story. Will Ferrell is so lovely in it, and I’m not just saying that because of my geek-crush on him. It was a quirky comedy, sort of quiet.
But the previews – good god, what a lot of downers! The worst-looking trailer was for Children of Men, your standard dystopic vision of the post-apocalyptic future: grey people, skies, and cities, armed guards herding the masses through barbed wire mazes, and a mean and miserable totalitarian dictatorship. The movie, set to open Christmas Day, is about a world in which women have been unable to reproduce for the last 18 years and no one knows exactly why. Everyone is miserable without children since there’s no future to look forward to. And then the main guy, played by Clive Owen, finds out about a woman who has somehow managed to get very, very pregnant. Guess where they find her? In a barn. Full of dairy cows. Hooked up to milking machines. Talk about pregnant – with symbolism. Bah.
Maybe it’s the “No Children, No Hope” thing that’s gotten to me about this particular film. I don’t like dystopic films in general: Sin City, Aeon Flux, V for Vendetta come to mind. (I can’t even stomach those alternate-present scenarios in movies like Back to the Future II and It’s A Wonderful Life.) In an interview with Radar Online, Voluntary Human Extinction Movement founder Les U. Knight opines that fewer people having children would actually prevent the future chaos that Children of Men depicts:
If viewers find it plausible, it’ll show how irrationally human-centered we are. Besides, we’re already living in a dystopia, but we don’t want to admit it. Voluntary human extinction would prevent the dystopia of that science-fiction drama, not bring it about. Phasing ourselves out would actually enable us to progress toward a peaceful coexistence with others.
Knight’s is an extreme view to be sure. But he does bring up an interesting point about dystopia: are we already living in it? Dystopic fantasies seem to be based on the idea that all things have already gotten so bad that they can’t be fixed, and that everything is just going to get worse. This is called cynicism and it’s a comfortable view and an easy escape. Imagine everything turning to shit and sooner or later it will. Then cynics will predictably say, “Well, that’s what I said would happen.”
In the last century, there was this belief in progress, that things were just going to get better and better. People built railroads and went to the moon. In this century, such optimism is ridiculed. Artists, writers, filmmakers who want to be taken seriously deal in darkness, not lightheartedness. In a recent article for Walrus Magazine, designer Bruce Mau describes his irritation with the pessimism among artists and designers:
The prevailing mood feels dark, negative, harrowingly pessimistic, and tending to the cynical. Bizarrely, this kind of negativity has become the vogue even in creative fields, which are traditonally committed to vision, beauty, and pleasure, to notions of utopia – to possibility, in other words. This is especially true of design. How, I wondered, had the virus of pessismism crept into the one area of art that is charged with looking forward?
Optimism is unfashionable. It invites the stock response “How can you be happy when there is so much wrong with the world?” To that question I have no real answer, only a belief that there are still beautiful things in the world. To give in to the dystopic fantasies is to assume that everything will go wrong, in the worst way possible. If we’re just going to give in, I suppose we might as well do it now and stop torturing ourselves with images of a bleak future.
It’s shockingly easy to get cynical about where the world is headed at Christmas – on one hand, we’re bombarded with crap advertising that tells us Stuff=Perfect Gift!, and on the other, news of war, bombings in the Middle East (home of Jesus), etc. Yesterday, supposedly the frenziest shopping day of the year, I was walking the streets of the downtown shopping district, and I was struck by how everyone looked absolutely miserable. Everyone except the Salvation Army kettle people who were shaking their bells and singing like they just didn’t care who knew it. The shoppers looked fucking grim.
I feel happy, and I don’t know why. Call me a reformed cynic. I refuse to believe that everything will just get worse and worse. But I don’t believe in utopia any more than dystopia – things will never be absolutely perfect. The other day, a friend described how another friend of theirs bought a plot of land and was planning to build solar panels for energy to live off once the world’s energy ran out. I said I would just keep turning off lights when I left a room.
I just got word of an exciting “instant literature” event that is being presented by the Vancouver International Writers Festival. Vancouver Writes will bring together teams of eight participants with established Vancouver writers who will act as coaches. In 20-minute rounds of play, each team has to collaborate and create a piece of writing based on a given phrase. It promises to be fast-paced and competitive, qualities not normally found at most glacial-paced reading events.
The event is scheduled for February 23, 2007; details and ticket info can be found at the VIWF website.
I didn’t even know Lawn Darts had been recalled, but just in time for the holiday toy buying orgy, Radar has compiled this list of the most dangerous toys ever made. We’re talking lawn darts (aka weighted spears perfect for lodging in your neighbour’s head), atomic energy kits, crotch-mounted pellet guns, and dolls that chomp kids’ fingers. It’s all fun and games until someone gets decapitated.
Is it time to re-evaluate the status of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer as a classic Christmas special? Although it can be enjoyed as a kitschy, retro example of stop-motion animation, consider for a moment whether the story is too full of stereotypes of ethnicities and genders, hypocritical messages, and some really fucking weird plot points, to really be revered. Not to mention that Santa acts like an ass throughout.
First, the stereotypes. Rudolph’s dad acts like an American football coach dad who is ashamed of his son’s differences. Rudolph’s nose might means he’s gay! Horrors! (Maybe that’s why Santa breaks into a showtune at Rudolph’s birth…) Hermey the elf sports a Jewish accent and wants to be a dentist. Maybe the sweatshop toymaking job isn’t working out because he’s just not into the toys for the Gentile children thing. Mrs. Claus is an Italian grandma who calls her husband “Papa” and most of her lines are “Eat, eat!” As for gender, only boy reindeer get to fly – the girls just sit around passively on the sidelines. You know Dancer? Prancer? Vixen? Hmmm. You’ll also notice that at the end of the show, Santa only has six reindeer, not eight, pulling his sleigh. Was that because the female reindeer were not considered up to flying through the snowstorm on Christmas Eve? A snowstorm at the North Pole in December – who could have foreseen that?
Second, for a story that’s supposed to be about accepting other peoples differences, there sure are a lot of examples of accepting others only when they become useful to you. First, Donner won’t let his son leave the cave without covering up his red nose. Then Rudolph is the best reindeer at his first flying lesson – but then his nose cover falls off and he’s instantly ostracized. Even Santa gets in on the action of not allowing difference on his team – snowstorm, headlight, come in Santa? At the end when there’s that snowstorm that no one could have predicted, suddenly Rudolph’s The Man. Most people today would probably agree that Rudolph should have told them all to stick it. But I guess he still needed to be liked by all the bigots around him, despite already having proved he could make it on his own, if need be. What’s the message here? Celebrate your differences, but be sure to conform when they tell you to. Nice.
Third, the plot. What was up with that whole Abominable Snow Monster/Island of Misfit Toys subplot? I sort of get how the Snow Monster was a metaphor for the dangers of life beyond the “safe” confines and familiar prejudices of Christmastown, but the Island of Misfit toys? Let’s see: this Winged Lion figure (a cross between Aslan of the Narnia series (himself a representation of Jesus) and the flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz) flies around the world collecting toys too weird to love, brings them back to his island and imprisons them on an ice floe while he stays in his castle, and then says he needs Santa’s help to get the misfit toys adopted by children who will love them. Yeah, that makes sense.
And what about Santa? This whole critique germinated in my sister’s observation that the Santa of this particular Christmas special acts like a real prick. Despite delivering toys to children around the world, he won’t tolerate diversity among his reindeer. Then he acts like a grumpy old man while the elves are singing to just to him. And then he only acts nice to Rudolph when he needs him to guide his sleigh. I hope no one forgot to leave this Santa his milk and cookies. He’d throw a shitstorm of a tantrum.
Is this mishmash of stereotypes and prejudices really what we want the kiddies to be watching? To sum up: prejudice against others, nonsensical plot, Santa’s an ass. The only thing it’s got going for it is Burl Ives. And I’ve got his Christmas album.
Stew is wonderfully unfashionable. Most cookbooks don’t have a Table of Contents entry, let alone an index entry, for it. I looked through many of high-concept, glossy cookbooks on my shelf before settling on this recipe for Chulitna Moosemeat Stew from the Best of the Best From Alaska Cookbook. This cookbook, with its humble cerlox binding (much favoured by community and fundraiser cookbooks) was a birthday gift from my in-laws who went to Alaska last summer. And now I’ve cooked from it, thanks to the organizers of this month’s WCC. Phew.
It was the perfect day for stew: outside, the winds were blowing at about 60 km/hr and up, and it was pissing rain in the bargain. And inside, I was bored and stir-crazy because I just finished school and my job. Wandering aimlessly and waiting for 90210 to start, I needed some cooking-as-project to do. This recipe requires some prep work and almost 3 hours of cooking, so it is definitely not a throw together after work affair. But it’s deelish, and definitely worth the work and the wait.
The recipe comes from the Riversong Lodge in Alaska – they serve it to racers in the Idataski, a long-distance ski race. According to the cookbook, they can’t serve moosemeat to regular guests, so they make it with beef most of the time. Which is what I’ve done here because moose are scarce around Vancouver.
Chulitna Moosemeat Stew
Get:
6 strips of bacon, cut into 1-inch pieces
2-3 lbs of moosemeat or beef, cut into bite-sized cubes
Salt and pepper
10 pearl onions, peeled
2 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed
3 tablespoons flour
1 1/2 cups red wine
1 cup beef stock
3 tablespoons brandy
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and pressed with the flat of a knife
1-2 strips of fresh orange peel (I used the peel from a mandarin)
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried marjoram
1 medium onion, peeled and stuck with 3-4 whole cloves
1 lb mushrooms, sliced thick
4 large carrots, peeled, OR two handfuls of baby carrots, sliced thick
Do:
Starting about 3 to 3 1/2 hours before you want to eat, heat a large frying pan or saucepan over medium heat, and fry the bacon until it’s all brown and crispy. With a slotted spoon, remove the bacon and place it in a large, oven-safe casserole dish. Do not drain the pan.
Sprinkle the meat with salt and pepper, and cook it in the pan until the cubes are nice and brown on all sides (do the meat in batches if you have to.) Remove the meat to the casserole dish, reserving the juices in the pan.
Add the small onions and potatoes to the pan, and cook them until they are just a little brown and softened. While doing this, preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Add the cooked onions and potatoes to the casserole dish.
If there are lots of pan juices left, add the flour to them and whisk to thicken. (In my case, the potatoes and onions soaked up most of the meat juices, so there was hardly any juice to add flour to.) When the flour and pan juices are bubbling (shouldn’t take long) pour in the red wine, beef broth and brandy. (Another substitution: I had no brandy, so I just dosed the mixture with a bit of apricot brandy…)
When the mixture thickens just a tad, add the garlic, orange peels, marjoram and thyme, and stir to combine.
Place the clove-studded onion in the center of the casserole dish, and pour the liquid over everything. (Be sure you’re using a big dish – 2.5 to 3 L, at least.)
Place a lid on the casserole dish and bake for about 2 1/2 hours. If you wish, stir every once in awhile and taste the delicious liquid. When there is about 45 minutes to go, add the sliced mushrooms and carrots, and cook them until the carrots are tender.
To serve, remove the clove-studded onion and discard. Ladle the stew into big bowls and serve with rice or buttered buns, and red, red wine. Serves 4.
Because this cooks for so long by its lil’ ol’ self, there’s plenty of time to whip up some dessert. So, because I had some apples sitting around in the fridge, I decided to make my favourite comfort food dessert: Apple Crisp. It can be baked in the oven while you’re eating the stew.
I made this for two, but you can multiply as needed.
For the apples, get:
3 medium apples, peeled, cored, and sliced
smidge of lemon juice (to keep the apples from turning brown)
1 tablespoon of cornstarch
3 tablespoons of sugar
Mix the ingredients together in a small casserole dish. It should fill up one-half to two-thirds of the dish.
For the topping get:
1/4 cup of butter, softened
1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
dash of cinnamon
Mix the ingredients together in a bowl until it’s a nice crumbly consistency and the butter is incorporated into the other ingredients.
Pour the topping mixture over the apples, and bake in the 325 degree oven for 45-60 minutes, or until golden brown on top and bubbly underneath.
Serve plain, or with vanilla ice cream.
I hate ice cream.
Watch for the Weekend Cookbook Challenge round-up at weekendcookbookchallenge.blogspot.com.
Amy Winfrey has made a set of Christmas Bonus songs for fans of the Making Fiends series! You can choose naughty or nice, or watch both. The songs feature lyrics like “If I wear bananas/I’ll get monkeys in my hair.”
I’m very excited to introduce a new look for the old blog here. It took forever to figure out how to reinstall my nifty Haloscan comment system, but was helped along greatly by this individual who took the time out to let everyone know how to do it.
However, I’m not entirely happy with the new look yet. If anyone out there wants to show me some ways to customize this baby, I’d be much obliged.
P.S. I still haven’t figured out how to get rid of the Blogger comment link on the individual post pages, so please continue to use the Haloscan links (The ones that say Validation, Sassback and Discourse Community).
I searched high and low for the video of this skit, but those of you who are Kids in the Hall fans can remember it right?
Couple Disowns Son
[Dave and Kevin stand side-by-side in front of a suburban house, with a young boy next to Kevin. We see the scene through a television camera, as a press conference takes place.]
Dave: We’ve called this press conference today to announce publicly what is already a growing rumor in the community – that we are disappointed both in our child and in the experience of parenting. Now, we feel a certain sense of responsibility in that when our baby was born, we were often heard to encourage other couples to have children, describing it as, and I quote, “the most incredible experience in the world.” We would now like to retract that statement, and for all those who have only recently been stirred to conceive, we offer a word of advice – don’t.
Scott: Are you gonna get rid of the child?
Dave: No, no, of course not. We’re just gonna go one with our lives, but openly and honestly. Thank you.
[Dave, Kevin, and the boy turn and go into the house. As they do, the reporters yell questions and take pictures, and Dave and Kevin mutter replies back.]
Scott: Tommy! A little smile there, Tommy?
Dave: [quietly] C’mon, Tommy.
Kevin: No more photos, please.
Scott: Tommy! Can you smile still, Tommy? Do they treat you well?
Dave: [muttering] Treating him very well.
Scott: Just let me just see the kid, just one little picture.
Kevin: You’ve had enough.
[Dave, Kevin, and the boy go into the house, closing the storm door behind them. Scott follows them up the steps and squats, peering through the door into the house.]
Scott: Hey c’mon, c’mon, c’mon, hey Tommy? Whoa, what’s that, that’s just a black and white TV in there! Hey Tommy!
Mehehe.
Today I went to my favourite magazine store and bought a stack of new ones, so my head is just swimming with ideas and plans for new projects.
Anyway, of the items that stuck out was a report in the newspaper that there is a site called FakeYourSpace.com where you can “buy” friends for your Myspace, Facebook or Friendster profile. Starting at $0.99, you can buy the image of some hottie (cheesecake or beefcake) who will “comment” two times a week on your page. And so the sales pitch goes, having said hottie be your friend will attract other friends to your space and make you the most popular kid in school. Hey, wasn’t that the plot of Can’t Buy Me Love starring Patrick Dempsey? When you have to start faking it to the point where you’ll pay some nutty company for a picture of some girl’s bum to get others to like you and link to you, I’d say its time to give up the Internet, and either get a diary or go play outside.
I suppose the users of blogging services/social media sites like Blogger and WordPress are a little less visually obsessed than those above, but I must admit that it does often feel like blogging is just one big popularity contest. You write and then wait for the comments to start flowing, the visitor counter to uptick, the blogroll and Technorati rankings to climb. I’m not about to start faking commentary or press people into linking to me, like I have heard others have done.
These days, there’s more at stake than just social currency. There’s money to be made from Internet popularity. For example, publicists often write to popular bloggers and ask them to promote stuff in return for free tickets and merchandise. It’s like high school with endorsement deals. There is also Adsense or Amazon Associate advertising to think about – the higher the traffic to your site, the more likely you are to make any money from putting their ads on your site. As reported by Darren Barefoot, there are even companies that match up bloggers with advertisers who will pay to have reviews written of their products. Again, the better your visitor counts, the more likely you are to make some money.
We all have our own motivations for pressing on with this blogging thing, whether it’s to write, keep up with friends, get popular, or make money. On and offline, let’s face it, we all want to be liked and important. Would you love me more if I had pictures of hot friends on my site? If so, get the fuck out. MySpace and the people who run FakeYourSpace await.
Goals are Stupid 
