Not Quite Christmas, Not Quite New Years

As a contrast to my last post, let me just say that I'm back home, which is to say, back East. 'Tis the season of family togetherness, and so since Christmas Eve I have been at the homestead soaking up Smitty love, watching movies, and having food pressed upon me at every turn.

I would have blogged more, but thanks to all the stuffing, my pudgy fingers can barely reach the keyboard.

Anyway, I have to spend a few days in Toronto and Montreal starting now, so don't expect the pace of posting to pick up any. However, once I return, you can look forward to a truly terrifying trip down Memory Nightmare Alley, as I have discovered the diary of my misspent youth. And by misspent I meant whiny. Very, very whiny.

West Coast Living

When I'm at work, I work hard... at living up to the stereotype of the disgruntled Easterner. In short, I celebrate the following:

1. Smoking (although I haven't since that brief flirtation with tobacco in aught-eight)
2. Grease-laden foods
3. Toronto
4. the Montreal Canadiens
5. Concrete

While disparaging the following:

1. Camping
2. Sunflower seeds in everything
3. The Sunshine Coast
4. the Vancouver Canucks
5. Crab traps

Secretly, however, there's a sugary nougat centre beneath my prickly exterior. I like Victoria. I like taking the ferry back when it's not dark and raining, so I can watch from the deck as the postcard-pretty islands pass by. There are purple starfish, used bookstores and Eccles cakes as far as the eye can see.

Or at least until your eyes get to Saaanich, at which point things get pretty residential and unexciting, but still. Lots of fun to see before then.

These are all lovely little comforts, but I'm also fond of making rent and keeping things in the pantry besides lentils. I'll need to find a job after my internship is over, and the word on Fort an Douglas streets is that's not the simplest of tasks. So I'm cruel to Victoria and it's many delights because I don't want to fall in love with the city, and then regret moving back to Toronto.

However, every mean word about the sunflower thing was in earnest. That's just whack.

Burlesque: Approach With Caution, Glitter

This still is more exciting than 99.999999% of the movie.

I love Cher. I would follow that crazy dancing, singing, walking, talking Real Doll to the ends of the Earth and beyond. She's half-Armenian, half-Sleestak and all love.

And I'm opening on this note of Cherophilia because I feel the need to justify my purchase of tickets - at full price (10$) to Burlesque (a film worth 0.01$, if anything.)

It seemed like a good idea at the time. Singing, dancing, costumes, Alan Cumming, Cher, Cher, Cher - but I was cruelly mistaken. I forgot to reckon on the presence of Christina Aguilera, Aguilera, Aguilera.

There's no denying the girl can sing, except that like Celine Dion, she uses her great power for great evil. Aguilera seems to have never met a note she wouldn't turn into an octave, complete with growling "uh-hrrrrrrrrr" intro. The only raft in the ocean of terrifying yell-singing was a Cher ballad. Seriously, Cher isn't the most dramatic thing on screen. The Pro Tooled notes soothed my frayed nerves for a few minutes, but then it was time for Aguilera to slather on the melisma again. And for me to slouch further down in my seat.

Have you ever seen Coyote Ugly? Well, make the acting even worse and you'll have this movie. Listen to Aguilera speak the line "I'm only taking what's owed me, not a penny more" and hear someone who might have learned her lines phonetically. However, even the real actors don't get much in the way of assistance from the script. Poor, pretty, perpetually shirtless Cam Gigandet gets the worst of it. In a wedding scene, he gets in a phone argument with his fiancée and has to say "Yeah, we should talk about our future. In fact, I think I'm looking at my future right now."

Now, by rights, he should have been staring meaningfully at the buffet table while saying this. Instead, of course, he's got to gaze longingly at Christina Aguilera. I don't want to slut shame anyone, but I remember her "Dirrty/Xtina" period. That's a future full of new and exciting STI's Gigandet is staring down, my friends.

Any movie reflections should end with at least one positive comment, and here's one for Burlesque: It kept the sequin stitchers of America employed during this trying economic downturn.

Don't see it, no matter how much you've had to drink.

Ballad of the Beardies

I have never pretended to be the luckiest girl in the world when it comes to the menfolk. The reasons for my lack of success are legion (complete lack of personal charms, still trying to find that elusive combination of unibrow and accordion-playing ability, etc.)

So, today's tale will be another tale of woe, but this time one of woeful amusement instead of woeful horror.

There's an adorable café near my house, seemingly populated at all hours by an endless array of healthy BC folks wearing scarves, Cowichan sweaters and typing on the Macs. (Full disclosure: I write this in that self-same café on a Mac, but am wearing a striped hoodie.)

A few weeks ago, I had what I thought was a torrid smile affair with a charmingly bearded chap sitting next to me on the couch. He smiled at me, I smiled at him, then briefly considered asking him about the article he was reading in the Times-Colonist.

Of course, I didn't, but I held high hopes that Beardy would reappear in the café eventually. Would we move on to complete sentences at some point? Why, no, I have my reputation to consider, after all. But he didn't! Oh, there were other beards, but they didn't belong to my Beardy.

Oh so I thought.

Eventually I realized that nearly every patron, save the mustachioed hippie with the bubble wand, is a tall, handsome white dude with some kind of fuzzy facial outgrowth. I could have seen my Beardy a thousand times AND NEVER EVEN KNOWN. And maybe I did. So, I wrote Beardy off and decided to pursue my next dream: becoming Mrs. Comic Book Store.

And then I found out that Mr. Comic Book Store is married and has a child. Stay tuned next week for another episode of "Ill-Advised Days of our Lives."

In Defence of the Pet Shop Boys

It has recently come to my attention that some people are not as respectful of The Pet Shop Boy as they ought to be.



To which I say: SHAME. I love the boys for two reasons. The first is that the only friendly employee at the Montreal VIA station once sang part of "Opportunities" to me, completely poker-faced, as various and generally irate people milled about.



The second is that they're a legitimately good act. Don't be fooled by the high production values and superficial lyrics. The Pet Shop Boys know they're singing to the dark, empty - but most of all lonely - heart of the city.

The Plastic and the Glory of Seth

Seth is an interesting case. Sometimes I feel like I love his book covers more so than his actual books. His art is so pristine, so gracefully curvaceous, that I sometimes want to crumple it up, just so it can be a little bit messier and a lot more real.

Take, for example, this Dorothy Parker cover for Penguin. It's the perfect match, really. Surface sophistication with a bitter little centre (did Seth make her a little bit drunk? I think so.) Like all good covers, it economically sums up both the content of a book and the worldview of its author.

Now, compare with Wimbledon Green. Wimbledown is a beautifully-designed book in all ways. The foil on the cloth cover, the comfortable weight in your hands, you really couldn't ask for a more beautiful object to look at and to hold. But to read? As much as I like Seth, I sometimes feel as if his art is too perfect. Something a little more raggedy gives you space to fill in what's happening in between panels, whereas Seth's art is so pristine that each panel ends up frozen.

Then again, there are worse things than ending up in a stasis that's so damn pretty. And I think Seth does well when he works from a topic that is closer to his heart, like illustrating his father's stories in Bannock and Black Beans, or, uh, writing in shades of acute depression, as he does in Clyde Fans. It's when he follows the path of his cartooning idols, with elaborate plots and Chris Ware-style formatting, a little too closely that things begin to feel overly mannered.

Normally, I wouldn't be writing semi-critically about Seth. He lives in my hometown and I feel a certain amount of Guelph solidarity with him. However, my mild concerns with his work are becoming more acute ones I hold for art comics as a whole. Just as comics are breaking into popular and academic respectability, the stories many of their creators tell are becoming more artificial. Without a strong interest in the work of Doug Wright or a strong stomach for autobiographical blather (the black and white books I think of as the "Straight White Guys Buying Milk" genre), I'm not sure how much interest the Drawn and Quarterly catalogue will hold. And with the choice of vision seemingly split between looking at the past (Seth), or at one's own navel (Jeffrey Brown), I wonder who in comics is looking towards the future.

I started this post after reading a post at the excellent Comics Comics. I may not agree with all of their evaluations, but they're always convincingly phrased and educational. Jeet Heer, who wrote about Seth for that blog, also has an excellent piece in this month's Walrus about Stuart McLean. So good that it almost made me re-evaluate my intense, flaming hatred for The Vinyl Café. Almost.

Back In Pulp

One of the nice things about having gainful employment - besides not being able to watch back to back episodes of Sue Thomas F.B.Eye and Oprah, which means not having to justify doing so - is having ready money. No more lentils every day for a week. No more hoping your hair looks charmingly tousled instead of desperately in need of a cut.

And one of the nicest things is being able to buy comic books. When you're unemployed, spending four to six dollars on twenty-page bundles of paper does not seem the wisest investment one could make. At least, it didn't to me, which meant I stopped buying comics. And like missing one day's worth of soap operas, missing a month or more of comics is a bad idea.

Why? 'Cause, all of a sudden, you'll find yourself in the middle of the comic book store, wondering since when was Wolfsbane knocked up. And you'll be more judgmental of yourself for not knowing the answer to that question, than you are for knowing who the hell Wolfsbane is in the first place.

I've been trying to get caught up on some of the series I was following before the Great Poorening, and so far I'm almost up to speed on Berlin (since when did that start publishing again? I feel like it was on hiatus forever), The Unwritten and Sweet Tooth.

And honestly, if you're not reading Sweet Tooth yet, you should be. I know I've become kind of an annoying proselytizer for this book, but I don't feel guilty. It has an unrelentingly grim post-apocalyptic world, but still finds room for isolated notes of human (and mutant) warmth. And thus it deserves all the flogging it can handle. READ IT!

The Green Hornet Trailer Will Make You Cranky And Confused

Question: Does the Green Hornet movie even know what it wants to be? I think it's aiming for the cocky comic action that brought Iron Man many sacks heavily laden with money. Instead, it only feels like the demented, oozing offspring of Daredevil and a Judd Apatow movie.

Also, I am concerned about Jay Chou's aka Kato's hair. What are the bangs hiding? WHAT?

Sometimes, I just want movies to have the conviction to stay in one genre. You don't have to be a self-aware comedy, a big budget action movie and a make-work project for Edward James Olmos at the same time. Pick one thing and be good at it, instead of hoping Cameron Diaz will somehow save your movie. It's not 1997 anymore. She won't.

The strangest thing about this monstrosity is that it's directed by Michel Gondry. Now, perhaps the trailer monkeys got a little too weirded out by his original footage and spliced in more explosions and hunger dunger dang music, so the trailer looks like what a superhero movie trailer should look like. But unless the actual movie has the Green Hornet riding in a crocheted supercar that unspools yarn as cotton batting clouds pass by, I'll be concerned that Gondry has given up on being twee. And he did it so well.

Still, at least it's better than the trailer for Skyline, but that's a whole 'nother rant.

Food For Forest Critters

I hope the defining aspect of my generation is not its dedication to theme parties, but it's beginning to look that way. And so here is my theoretical contribution to the age's great body of work:

A Dinner Party Featuring Food A Hedgehog Would Make If A Hedgehog Could Make Food.

Drinks would be Forever Nuts tea from Davids Tea, and dessert would be this, a Scandinavian Dried Fruit Soup. God, doesn't the name alone make you think you're living in a burrow? And that's not whipped cream on top. Oh no, there are no whipped cream cartons in the forest. Only yogurt for this one (although I'm not sure why I've decided there are plastic yogurt tubs in the wood either, but I'm the hostess of this theme party, and so my word is law.)

It's from the Moosewood Daily Special Cookbook, and although I was expecting something that tasted like dates floating in spruce beer (don't ask,) it's rather sweet thanks to the four cups of peach juice you pour into this. Those hedgehogs might be on to something yet.

Book Covers I Have Loved: What To Cook And How To Cook It

Thanks to my new job, I've learned that designing a cookbook is hard. Each page has a dozen bits of information, from ingredients to cooking times, that must be communicated clearly to a reader who is similarly doing a dozen things at once trying to make that page into a meal.

However, I don't much care whether the inside of What To Cook and How To Cook It is easy to use, because the outside is certainly nice to look at. There's no creepy, branded photo of a celebrity chef with their signature scrawled across their own face, like you would get with your David Ramsays. Or a bunch of boring text that marks kitchen classics like The Joy of Cooking and How To Cook Everything.

There's just a few illustrations, including a fish who is so cute, I could eat him up. Literally. Like, with tartar sauce.

Book Covers I Have Not Loved: Room

If I could justify the purchase of a new hardcover book, I would have bought Emma Donoghue's Room a long time ago. It's received stellar reviews everywhere, including from a much-respected professor, and its subject matter is right up my true-crime inspired alley.

I would have even ignored its unfortunate cover.
You know what this looks like?
The poster for Jack, that's what. And if I'm going to be reading one of the best books of 2010, I don't want to also be reminded of a Robin Williams schmaltzfest.

The Social Network And Storytelling

Caesar And His Imperial Pyjama Pants

If you can stop creeping your friends long enough to go to a movie theatre, you should probably go see The Social Network. Aaron Sorkin’s dialogue is hyperactively clever, David Fincher’s visuals are clinically perfect, and Jesse Eisenberg’s ability to project fussiness is finally used for evil instead of good. And once you’ve finished – if you don’t run home to delete your profile – you should read this long New Yorker profile on the man himself, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

I don’t think you should read it to give you some fresh perspective on who Zuckerbeg is, or what really happened when Facebook was founded. I'm sure the guy we saw in The Social Network bears only a minimal resemblance to the real thing, but I'm not all that interested in what that would be anyway. What's neat is to see what was left out, what was changed, and what that says about our narrative expectations of the rich and the assholish.

For one thing, Zuckerberg's long-time girlfriend Priscilla Chan, who we meet in the article in an awkwardly stagey way, is completely out of the movie. Well, unless she's one of the Asian girls who give Zuckerberg and Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin blowjobs in the bathroom. Instead, we meet his white, well-spoken ex who provides the spark for starting and growing Facebook by rejecting him. The movie even ends with a superficially current tableau, where Zuckerberg friends her and waits, refreshing the page, to see if she accepts his request.

Well then, where did Priscilla Chan go? She was ditched so we could have a traditional, psychological narrative, where the engine driving the success is a personal failure. Starting a site for sexual vengeance makes more sense in this framework than the straightforward empire-building that comes out of the New Yorker piece.

It also allows the movie to play one of the most satisfying of narrative tropes, where vast wealth is gained but at a loss of all connection. Zuckerberg hitting refresh is just Charles Foster Kane alone in his mansion, except with worse tailoring. It would be hard for anyone in the audience to have more money than Zuckerberg, but at least they can congratulate themselves for having a warm body to go home with after the credits roll. Knowing "Zuck" gets to curl up with Priscilla and his DVDs just isn't as tasty.

I'm not saying that I mind Fincher and Co. making these changes. I probably enjoyed the movie more. I just find it interesting that traditional narrative expectations prevail even when we're dealing with a true story, about a new technology, developed recently enough that facts can be checked. It appears there are some things even more powerful than the urge to stalk the Facebook walls of people you hate.

(Oh look, Max rambled about the movie here. Why not check it out?)

Eco/Illogical

As part of the social contract of living in my current apartment, I have to abide by my landlord’s desire to use only environmentally-friendly products. Which is why I spent last weekend sunning myself under fluorescent lighting, debating the relative merits of dish soap.

The problem is that, once you veer from the path of Old Dutch, you’re suddenly chasing the vanishing point of virtue. No deed is ever good enough. Say you need hand soap, and start out with the store brand. Well, you might as well go down to the local pond and choke all the fish yourself, with what that will do to the algae population. So, you pick up the slightly more expensive store brand, the one that has a tasteful green and brown label and the words organic on it. Well, that’s better, but not good enough – after all, it’s still full of chemical additives and fragrances, in spite of the microscopic amounts of “organic” olive oils. The next is not made locally, the next has cetyl alchohol in it, the next has no alcohol, but has sulfates… and suddenly you’re considering spending over twelve dollars on hand soap.

And this is the point where virtue eludes you entirely. At least, it did for me. Paralyzed between Island Essentials and Nature Clean, I realized my own privilege was debating itself, and wondered if it wasn’t somehow better to spend three bucks on SoftSoap and send the difference to Amnesty International. But then – what about the fish? Surely, the best thing would be to spend over twelve dollars on soap, still send off nine dollars, and do something about the plastic bottle, because it’s hardly biodegradable, NOW IS IT?

By the time I had worked through this exhausting mental calculus, I still hadn’t found the all-crucial integer for keeping food in my belly. So, I spent five dollars on the mid-range natural soap - tragically unscented so no one could smell the eucalyptus and French lavender fumes of my goodness - and left. After all, you can’t save the world when you’re faint from hunger.

Greetings From The Island

Well, as promised, I made the move to Victoria just over a week ago. And, as my brother promised me, finding a room in Victoria is a bit of a nightmare. I finally ended up with a place that reminds me of what being a young career girl in the '50s must have been like, except with more Ikea furnishings. I live above an older couple and have a wee kitchenette all to myself, and kind of do and kind of don't have Internet.

So, posting will likely be erratic until I figure out what's going on with the connection. Hopefully it won't all end with me darning my nylon stockings by the radio, waiting for the phone to ring, or whatever it was ladies with an education and without a husband did back then (bridge?).

Elephant Sweater : Cuteness Made Physical

I have a bad habit of getting bored of a knitting project before it's cast off. Unfinished sweaters and shawls litter the graveyard of my good knitting intentions. However, that didn't happen with this sweater, which was finished just over a week after I purchased the yarn.

Blame the adorable elephant. Or its even more adorable recipient, who's turning one later this month. The pattern comes from Roo Designs, which seems to have produced a fleet of aww-inducing kiddie duds. The alligator, owl and whale patterns were also close seconds when I was picking one up at All Strung Out, but... you've gotta love a pachyderm.

I would also love to knit with the yarn, Mission Falls 136 Superwash, again. It's soft, squishy and superwash and comes in such lovely colours. I used Teal, Oyster and either Poppy or Russet (I lost the ball band) for this sweater, but am now imagining another in Thyme, Cornflower and Ink. But adult-sized, for me.

Classic Entertainment For The Children: Wallace And Gromit

People who have been reading this blog for a bit might have noticed that I link to the Onion's AV Club from time to time. I like them, and they like lists. Recently, they dedicated one to children's pop culture that adults could love, and it's really made me question my positive relationship with that site - How could I respect any place that would leave Wallace and Gromit off the list? Well, let me make up for their oversight, and in their own format too.

Marty Q. Protagitron: I don't know you guys personally, AV writers, but y'all suck. I'm sorry to use such vulgar Americanisms within the quaint British hearing of Wallace And Gromit, but there it is. No animated duo can bring joy to the hearts of both child and man like this hapless inventor and his much cleverer dog. Wallace and the mute Gromit wander through an eccentric, imaginary England that has kept all of its old charm - lace doilies on the furniture, three channels on the telly, and everything closed for a bank holiday - while opening itself to the fantastic. The moon is made of a Stilton-like cheese and penguins rob museums, but Wallace and Gromit still always make it home for tea.

My introduction to Wallace and Gromit came with the short The Wrong Trousers. It wasn't their first (that would be 1989's Oscar-nominated A Grand Day Out) but it's certainly their best. I was about eight, and I loved it then because it was a cracking good story. Gromit, with his prominent brow and resourceful nature, was also my Platonic ideal of dogdom. Now I appreciate its clever film allusions, from Hitchcock to silent classics. 2009's A Matter Of Loaf And Death even had a shout out to Aliens, but unlike some other flicks (ahem, Shrek), the jokes never get in the way of the story. Watching Wallace and Gromit in claymation action is like eating a big bowl of homemade oatmeal. It's hearty and comforting, without the regret that comes with indulging in the sugary pop candy of lesser kiddie fare.

Odd Questions My Dad Has Asked Me

Grand news! I am moving to Victoria, BC, for a job! I'll be there for at least 44 weeks (well, unless I'm a total washout, but let's not think of that now - instead, let's great ready for the THUNDER of EMPLOYMENT and the THRILLS of LEARNING.) So, I am busy readying my supply of polar fleece and bulk food containers for the trip.

Sadly, this means I will soon be a 6-8 hour flight away from my family. I will miss them all terribly, although my kind, understanding father has one odd habit that has left me feeling I was living in a Quiz Bowl for the past two weeks. He asks questions. Lots of questions.

Most of which I do not know the answer to.

For your and my amusement, here's a list of five random questions he asked me today, to which my answer was either "I don't know" or "I'm not sure, but..."

1. A list of all the cookies offered at the cookie bakery I visited in New York, almost 18 months ago.

2. What the Russian people thought of Dostoevsky.

3. If there were any real Jewish restaurants left in Montreal, besides the delis.

4. Why k-os would write a song about Natalie Portman.

5. If there was any great writer or thinker no one had ever made a great documentary about... yet.

Guelph By The Thingies: Hillside Mug

The Hillside Music Festival is just big enough that it sells out every year, and just small enough that I still ended up proselytizing about it to people in Montreal. This weekend-long tribute to music and the crunchy arts is well-known in most Canadian music circles, to be fair. But get away from seasoned CBC listeners, or even just cross the provincial border, and many people don't know it exists.

Which is a shame, because Hillside always has a decent lineup. And it doesn't make you pay 4-8$ for a bottle of water. No, all of its food comes from a rotating roster of local restaurants and catering companies, there's a water truck for you to fill up your reusable bottle and you get a special plastic mug in which to deposit your beer.

You can also take a break from the music whenever you need to, and learn how to vermicompost or parse the difference between brownies and imps. (I wouldn't know, as I couldn't work up the courage to attend Fairies 101 last year.) It's also a good lens on Guelph tensions, as the questions of whether this Hillside is better than the last, whether there should be more people allowed in or not, or even whether the Guelphite to Outsider ratio is too high, all hang over the main stage. However, those issues are also easy enough to forget as long as you've brought your trusty mug and some money along with you.

Guelph By The Thingies: Graffiti

Downtown Guelph has many things going for it. On a brisk twenty minute walking circuit, you can go to the knitting store, pick up a used book at Macondo, and even visit the City Hall, should you ever want to see democracy in action. (I have never ever wanted to do so.)

However, downtown Guelph is not without its faults. A lot of stores do well, but there are many empty storefronts and a struggling mall right in the middle of the main square. Once the stores close, it's a wasteland until the bars open. And a block has remained burned out for years.

One of the ideas to revitalize the downtown was to move the library from it's squaretastic '70s-era digs to a new and more central location. To that end, a whole row of stores was essentially forced out. They remain empty.

Please look upon the superimposition of the street as artistic, and not the effect of annoyingly glazed windows.

If you look through the window of what used to be the Family Thrift Store, you'll see someone has spray-painted "We need communities not condos" on one of the abandoned walls. I don't think Guelph has decided whether it should agree with that sentiment or not.

Guelph By The Thingies: Real Estate Business Card

Guelph isn't all locally-sourced squares and indie bookstore newsletters, no matter what my previous entries would have you believe. So far I think I've skewed things to reflect the Guelph I mostly grew up with, which happens to be a Guelph delineated by what was in walking distance from my house.

My house was close to downtown though, which meant that I had easy access to the bakery and bookstore I talked about earlier. However, that also meant I needed a drive to Guelph's true shopping Mecca, Stone Road Mall, when it was time to go back to school.

There were cheaper clothes in other strip malls, and classier ones at boutiques downtown, but for mid-priced, middle-of-the-road style that would get you through high school (Then: The American Eagle Equilibrium. Now: Whatever It Is The Kids Like), Stone Road Mall was where it was at. And around it, there were satellite strip malls, with even more shopping options, at that time mostly Staples and the pet store.

The mall has even metastasized since I left, with more stores, a fireplace in the food court and even larger big box stores opening down the street. I walked around it all, hoping to find something that represented all the growth. But everything construction-related was safely kept away and anything else was priced. Finally, I went to guest services, where they told me the administration offices were closed and handed me a business card instead.

Maybe this "Anna Grant" has the answers to how far the Stone Road Mall will grow. I don't think it will be much, since it's already pushing its parking boundaries. Then again, who knows? Maybe they will collapse space and time around a Gap, and the mall will finally be larger than the downtown itself.

*Sorry I didn't post this last Friday - I ended up being really busy on the weekend.

Guelph By The Thingies: With The Grain Square

With The Grain is a local bakery that opened up when I was about 11. Back then, they had a tiny storefront in a house and just sold bread. Now they have risen like so many yeasty loaves to take over three buildings and offer everything edible from scones to squares to bread to jams. Basically, anything that makes the latest issue of the Globe and Mail go down easy.

And they've deserved every bit of success, because everything they sell is delicious. Also, rather dense, so you really get your money's worth. For example, the square you see here - a slice of seasonal, Ginger-Peach cheesecake - might seem pricey at $4.25. However, that's only half of the square. And considering With The Grain's philosophy of using "fresh, local, and natural ingredients" those peaches are probably real Ontario peaches (which, for people unlucky enough to grow up elsewhere, are golden orbs worthy of Zeus himself) and the ginger has been ground by donkeys at a sanctuary or something. Then again, at With The Grain, it could come from Satan himself and people would still flock there.

Tomorrow: I venture to Stone Road Mall in search of an artifact of Guelph's sprawl.

Guelph By The Thingies: Guelph Remastered Sign

Right now, construction is everywhere in Guelph. You know how the standard joke for any Canadian city is that there are two seasons, winter and construction? Well, in Guelph it seems that there are three modes. Winter, construction, and MEGA CONSTRUCT OVERDRIVE 3000. We currently appear to be in the latter, with every two blocks or so having some kind of site.

The City even has a name for it, and sadly it is not my infinitely superior version found above. Instead, it is Guelph. Remastered. The posters are actually quite pretty, but the highlight is the slogan: "It'll be worth it."

It's rare to see an ad campaign based on how unconvincing its product's premise can be. Well, at least the ads are ready to placate the irate drivers who can't use Victoria Road. If they don't work though, I have two slogans they can use instead: "Guelph: Please Bear With Us" and "Guelph: Technical Difficulties, Please Stand By." If either slogan is used, I will accept payment in City of Guelph pens and bookmarks. It'll be worth it.

Guelph By The Thingies: Off The Shelf, The Bookshelf Newspaper

This is The Bookshelf (courtesy of Google Images.) Explaining it to Outlanders was one of my most difficult tasks while living in Montreal. I could make it through "local independent bookstore" - Oh, that's great! - "it's pretty much the only one in town" - Cute! - "and sometimes it feels like it has a Medici-like stranglehold on local arts and culture" - which would then earn a disbelieving look. Alright, I exaggerate just a bit, but it's a complex containing a bookstore, restaurant, café and art cinema, so unless $5 popcorn and Avatar is your thing, it's where you'll probably end up in Guelph.


It also publishes its own bimonthly newsletter, complete with cinema listings, book reviews and ads for local therapists and life coaches. A lot of them. Eleven out of forty one ads, if you include Irish spirit wheel workshops, which I do.

At first, I wanted to make fun of that hilariously high percentage, and how living in Guelph sometimes feels like you're stuck in a Dykes To Watch Out For comic strip. Or a historical village dedicated to the 1970s,with very intense interpreters. However, I can't say I would change a thing. There's something comforting, and positively Guelphian (in both senses) in all the therapy media. It's not that this newsletter is saying you must be a better person, or that you will be a better person. It just seems to think, that with enough work, you can be a better person. All problems can be solved, all sexual dysfunctions put to work and all Irish spirit wheels turning as long as you just find the right person with the right credentials.

In this case, Jungian psychoanalysis seems to have the advantage. Two out of eleven ads, for three therapists.

Here's a breakdown of the rest of the ads, just in case you were interested. Me? I just like making pie charts.

Back To Ontario

To continue my last post: So, I moved. There was a last-minute snafu involving - who else? - Quebec hydro, that lead to a mental breakdown, a lot of swearing and then a significant outlay of funds. However, I managed to overcome that last little wrinkle, and barring a threatening phone call from my old landlord or the girl who's taking over my apartment, I am free of Montreal.

And it feels kind of gross.

Especially since I've become the cliche of cliches, a New York Times Magazine article. Yes, I am now one of those twentysomethings who has taken wing, soared above the city... and turned right around and back into the nest. I rather exhausted my savings being unemployed in Montreal, and until I find a job in Toronto, I am living in Guelph.

I keep on having terrifying premonitions that this whole experiment will end with me eating cheezies and watching The Price Is Right at two in the afternoon, entertaining erotic notions about Bob Barker and wondering why I now have to settle for Drew Carey.

Anyway, I want to get this blog back on a 1962 recipe-making, movie-bitching path, but I think that's at least a week away while I deal with my quarterlife crisis. Until then, I'm going to try and explain my hometown with daily posts on particularly Guelphy artifacts, starting with the local independent bookstore/ art house cinema's bimonthly listings. Oh yes, in Guelph we believe in versatility.

I Hate Craigslist

So, I'm moving. And, like many a person who has to move, I have a surplus of stuff. And so, again like many person who has to move, I have turned to Craigslist in an attempt to offload it all.

And now I hate humanity.

First, of all, the reading comprehension skills of the average Craigslister are dire. If I put "Frontenac Metro" in the title of my post, why do I then get three e-mail responses asking me which metro I'm closest to? Maybe I should send the answer to them in a series of clues.

The first clue: Look in the title.
The second: No, seriously, I do not live at Metro Slow Cooker For Sale.
The third: Or at Metro Vendome.
The fourth: Rhymes with "Trontenac.:
The fifth: I hate you.

Or when I saw "pickup only", I should also not get an e-mail asking if I deliver. It's a 10 dollar shelf. TEN DOLLARS. Get your lazy ass over here and get it, I am not The Brick.

Also, I've noticed that a lot of people will e-mail you, you'll give them your contact info and then you'll never hear from them again. In a weird fit of anxiety, I always wonder if they're okay. Like, what if they're hoarders, and a pile of newspapers from '95 fell on them, and they're pinned underneath all the print unable to hit send? That would be an awful lot of guilt for me to bear.

However, I will say this for Craigslist. It's awesome at getting rid of the old appliances your new tenant decided she didn't want anymore. Even if the washer goes to one very optimistic, and very strong, Russian who ends up moving pretty much the whole thing all by himself, except for the part where the washer fell over and put a gash in my foot. Still, the blood spilled was worth it, as I didn't have to pay to have it disposed. And that is truly the greatest gift of all.

Eat Pray Love: Carnage At The Cinema

My general anxiety level was raised to code yellow (HORROR) recently. Why?

The reason stalks the land on two, long willowy legs, a bunch of pasta in its mouth, superficial Eastern spirituality on the brain, and a hot Brazilian... well, you know. It's also known as Julia Roberts as Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat Pray Love: The Movie.

Ahhh! The horror! Alright, my issues with this movie aren't so much with Elizabeth Gilbert, or the problematic aspects of PrivLit, but with the biblio terrorism my Mom practiced when the book came out. I was at home for the summer after a miserable year at university, feeling depressed and unloved. At odd intervals, my Mom would compound problems by cornering me in the kitchen and reading out passages she found particularly amusing or enlightening.

When she was finished, I would remind her that I, too, could overcome my depression if she would only finance my round-the-world trip*. That never stopped her though. And since, considering the way my life is going, there is a 99.99999% chance I'll be moving back to Guelph soon as I relocate my life to Toronto, I'm worried she'll have another go at the memoir form of shock and awe. And while the movie is less portable, random snippets seem much more appealing compared to two hours held captive in a dark movie theatre.

*Working title: Stuff, Drink, Regret. Possible locations: Kansas City, MO; Moscow; Dark Night Of The Soul.

BTO: Binding iT Off

I'm taking a page from the fine philosophers Bachman, Turner et al and making my new life motto TCB: takin' care of business.

So far though, it's more like TCK: takin' care of knitting. About a week ago, I tired of the glut of half-finished and orphaned projects I had kicking around and decided to finish them all. First up, the most tragic knit of all: the Arctic Diamonds Stole.Started at least two years ago, this stole had an unfortunate run in with a leaky container of tomato soup. Instead of spot-treating the stains immediately, I hid it away in frustration. I am wise. I was wiser still in using extra braces elastics as stitch markers, because the rubber quickly degraded and added more, if also more regularly spaced, stains. Yee haw.
I forged ahead anyways and managed to get some of the stains out. I'm willing to accept the finished project, but only with some DRAMATIC FRINGE. At the rate I'm adding the fringe though, it will be another two years before it is complete. Oh well. Think of the DRAMA.
Next: My January Aran is getting sleeves! Consider it a belated 100th birthday shout-out to Elizabeth Zimmerman. By the way, that is a Penguin of Perseverence my Dad bought for me at a street fair. I look to it for inspiration.

Stuck On Pause, With Pasta

Oh mon dieu. I wish I had momentous news from my absence to report, but not so much. For a while there, my life felt like it was stuck on pause. I was waiting to hear back about one job, but thinking about moving back to Ontario. I was going off to volunteer, but coming home to play endless rounds of solitaire. I was on a unicycle, pedaling endlessly in space.

Ok, scratch the unicycle part, although it makes for a fun mental image. No wait, I want to continue with the metaphor. Eventually, though, I decided to stop pedaling and descend gracelessly from the unicycle. Now I am back on my own two feet, I have a plan and I begin to feel semi-competent again.

To celebrate, here's a quick recipe, sans photos, for a dish I've been making a lot recently. I bought ingredients for a pasta salad since there was a picnic on the horizon. The picnic went swimmingly, even though it became an indoor thing thanks to rain, but I still have orphaned artichoke hearts. Hence this pasta dish. Make it when you're lazy, poor and have nuttin' but jars in the fridge and a basil plant on the windowsill.

The Fridge Is Bare And Your Life Is Overwhelming Pasta, or Carbs, Yay.
-enough spaghetti for one person
-a handful of oil-packed, sun-dried tomatoes, chopped
-two artichoke hearts, drained, sliced and separated
-one shot of olive oil
-a handful of finely-grated parmesan cheese
-two generous pinches of fresh basil, chopped
-salt and pepper to taste

1. Make spaghetti. Refer to the box instructions if you must. Drain.
2. Toss with sun-dried tomatoes, artichoke heart slices, and olive oil. Throw in basil, parmesan, and salt and pepper, then toss until the cheese begins to melt.
3. That's it, you're done. Serve with depanneur beer and a side of quarter-life crisis, but finish off with hope.

Social Media Blues, Pt 1: Back On Twitter

Twithulu, destroyer of worlds and 141st characters. Mug can be purchased through Warren Ellis' CafePress store, and was brought to my attention by the always-delightful Freshwater Mermaid.

If you haven't subscribed to this blog and aren't looking at it through your favorite reader - and really, why haven't you? Protagitron delivered right to your screen! - then you might have noticed a few changed. First, a few status bars have been ditched from my beleaguered blog side bar. And second, something has been added - a Twitter feed.

Some you may remember my first Tweet incarnation, as simply Protagitron. I tried it, dutifuly shortened links, tried to understand hash tags... and then Twitter began to annoy me, so I killed it. And now I'm back, as MsProtagitron.

Yeah, it's a second-wave shoutout. I have my reasons for coming back, but mostly it's just to see where this thing is going. I'm tired of certain media outlets telling me it's the future. I don't think it is. Perhaps it's a sign of my Luddite cred, but I find it only really works if you're a celebrity or a news source, or a friend. I care about the 140-character thoughts of the first because they're famous, the second because they're infamous, and the third because I know them. Otherwise, I find that the character limit is not enough to form a coherent thought, much less a personal connection. I would rather read a blog post.

Wow, just typing that made me feel old, which is something I never thought I would say about a sentence with "blog" in it.

What it is good for, though, is the constant posting of links to other, longer articles. Sometimes my own, but usually something from a real newspaper or dedicated blog. And I've noticed that the Twitter feeds I appreciate most generally function the same way. As long as I think of Twitter as the conduit and not the destination, then I think we can have a working relationship.

More Monty Adventures

Pictured: DAMN YOU, JEFF KOONS.

Right after my stomach had recovered from the grape-cream-ham-chicken shock and awe I visited upon it last Monday, m BFF4Life Katie came up to visit. She was my roommate for 2 1/2 years, so we basically share the same likes, dislikes and sense of humour as one another. Basically, there's one shared brain between us, which is why it's so unfortunate that she's been living in the States for the past 18 or so months. Before she returned, I had been reduced to aimlessly circling my apartment and repeating the same inside jokes we shared to the cat.

But then - she arrived! She came, we saw local attractions, we conquered. Highlights of the past 10 days include:

1. Eating cupcakes at the nut-free bakery, Cho'cola, aka the one baked goods hut that won't kill her.
2. Screening Ip Man 2 at the Fantasia film festival and applauding every fight scene
3. Following that up with dumplings from Qing-Hua equally deserving of applause
4. Being so tired that watching back-to-back episodes of Can-Con-Cop drama Flashpoint ended up being AWESOME
5. Going to Ottawa
6. Getting a personalized tour of Parliament from a friend and avoiding the roving tours of eager cadets
7. Seeing the Pop Life exhibit at the National Art Gallery, then concluding that I despise Jeff Koons
8. Eating burgers at The Works
9. Going to the Dollar Cinema and sweating profusely while watching the Crazies
10. Finding a great used bookstore in NDG, Encore Books
11. Touring the low-budget museum masterpiece that is the Georges Cartier house. They ran out of money to pay real interpreters so now you get recordings. Admission is a low, low $3.00.
12. Seeing the insanely decorated interiors of the Chateau Dufresne. And getting to see it again for 3-odd bucks because half of the house is closed.
13. Discovering that, on Mondays, every store adorable and whimsical in Montreal is CLOSED.
14. Having a mimosa at night. Annoying Katie by singing "I Drink My Mimosas At Night" to the tune of the Cory Hart classic. "So I can... SO I CAN... Get drunk in a classy-like WAY!"
15. In short, spending way, way too much money and having even more fun.

Unfortunately, I did not do the following things in the past 1o days:
1. Laundry
2. Sweep floors
3. Clean living room
So maybe this return to real life is needed.

It Came From 1962: Chicken Breasts With Seedless Grapes and Marie's Crusty Peach Dessert

As promised, I made a whole meal. Well, I skipped the salad, because I think I had reached my monthly, if not annual, jello intake. However, making a main course and a dessert is a meal by my standards, which are the standards of an unemployed 22-year-old who hates to wash up.

So appreciate what you get, damn it.


Even if it's this. Again, this is supposed to be "Chicken Breasts With Seedless Grapes." Now, I spy plenty of seedless grapes (green instead of the white ones called for - apologies, Zada), but where's the chicken breast? Let's go to an oh-so-appetizing closeup to find out.

Hint: It's to the left.

Yes, it's there in the middle, gasping for air under a wine-infused cream sauce, ham, mushrooms and bushels of grapes. They should have just called this recipe "Sauce For Closeted Alcoholics" and let all the desperate housewives finish off the rest of the "dry white wine." It would have made more sense. Then again, there's a lot about the sixties that doesn't make sense to me, but I'll just drink up, be merry and learn to love the cigarette smoke.

In spite of its alarming colour scheme, which reminds me of '80s prom dresses, it's surprisingly edible. Or maybe that's just the wine talking. And here's dessert:


Fortunately, Crusty Peach Dessert is just another name for a peach crumble or crisp or whatever, so it is DELICIOUS. However, I do think the name would make for one hell of an STD euphemism.

To Montreal I Return!

Somehow, I couldn't quite convince my parents that finding goose liver sausages, mashing them up, spreading them on saltines and calling it delicious was a viable dinner option. I guess they actually suffered through the '60s, so cooking from 1962 was not an option. So, you'll be getting a special DECADE MEAL on Sunday, where I make two recipes just to get caught up, and then you'll probably also get a special LIVE HOSPITAL BLOG Monday morning when I go to get my stomach pumped.

Toronto was a ton of fun, even if it culminated with an embarrassing faceplant on a concrete sidewalk. I met up with all the friends I missed, including a crew who can outdrink me. The Ukrainian side of my genes was ever so ashamed of my performance. However, since I packed a week's worth of festivities into a day and half, most of which was spent carrying around my weight in clothes and sundries in a suitcase, I was pretty much dead when I returned to Guelph. So three quiet days with Smitty The Wonder Dog, my master chef dad and my mom were much appreciated. Even if they included conversations like this:

*Scene: debating dinner options with my family, with a cookbook's odd take on tuna sandwiches coming out ahead*
Mom: Since when did you start eating tuna?
Protagitron: Since I started being broke. I ate tuna noodle casseroles all the time for a while there.
Mom: But Protagitron, these are sandwiches and not casseroles, you know.
*I stare at the cookbook page facing me with "Tuna Sandwiches" in large letters. And a photo of a filling nestled between two slices of bread. As sandwiches so often are.*
Protagitron: I... was... aware of that, mother.
Mom: Oh, shut up.

Now I'm back in Montreal, celebrating a Netherlands win and poking my lazy, sleeping cat to make sure he's still alive. All is right in my world.

To Toronto I Go!

I'll be in Toronto and Guelph for most of this week, so my online access might be spotty at best. I'll try and do a 1962 recipe at some point though, and maybe an explanation of why Twitter has returned to my life, as you can see in the toolbar to the side. However, if I don't, it's because I'm too busy being two days too late to the G20 protests.

Actually, there's another reason for my visit but, depending on circumstances, I'll have to get into that later. Until then though, wish me luck in the land of English speakers!

American Splendor, Soccer-Style

I went out to watch the Ghana/USA match today. Bros were very much in evidence at the bar. Polo shirts, two USA jerseys... and a whole lot of hilarity. Seriously, I don't understand why the rest of the world has such a hate on for American fans. They're brash, loud and amazing. If I wanted a classy kind of fan, I would watch more polo.

Anyway, even though I was cheering for Ghana, I found these following drunken bon mots so frigging priceless, I had to record them in this here blog. Please imagine them slurred, it's essential to the effect:

3. "Sliiiiiiide, you dumb prick!"
2. In response to the British announcer giving the 2-1 score: "We knoooow, you British fuck!"
And my personal favorite, keeping in mind that the Ghanian jerseys were red:
1. "Kill the redcoats!"
It's funny because it's historical.

It Came From 1962: Alice's Ginger-Citrus Mold

I decided to wade bravely back into the jiggly fields of Jello-dom this week. And I'm glad I did, because this gelatinous mass is DELICIOUS. Sure, it might look like some kind of deep sea dweller, but it's good.

Probably because it doesn't have any meat, cheese, or other foodstuffs that belong out of my gelatin.

Anyway, this is Alice's Ginger-Citrus Mold. Yes, it's still from the salad section, but since it has two -TWO - different kind of fruits in it, I'm prepared to accept it as the fruit variety. And because the addition of grated candied ginger makes it delicious, I'm feeling a little generous. I ate this thing for breakfast. Willingly.

If I might digress though, the fact that both the grapefruit segments and the mandarin oranges have to be canned is such a sign of the times. This cookbook is proud to boast its "California flavor", but they'll eagerly bypass citrus trees that were probably growing in their backyward to grab a can opener. And I, for one, don't blame them. Little Todd has Scouts tonight and my 60s husband (Art McKenzie, FYI) has to go to the lodge. So I can't be assed to peel a grapefruit's worth of segments.

I'm A Winner!

Well.

Absences happen.

I'm beginning to get a little cabin feverish. I try to go outside and accomplish some task each day (on top of the constant, constant job applications) just so I don't get squirrelly, and so that I have an excuse to shower, but it hasn't stopped me from going a little funny. For example, as I told some friends, I recently had a weird dream. I was watching a play of some kind, a very serious kind, because there was no set but a black curtain and two chairs. It was about Robert Kennedy and Teddy Kennedy having a fight after the assassination of JFK.

Who portrayed the brothers? Veterans of stage and scene? Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt hoping to get some stage cred? No, it was two soccer players. Two shirtless, shirtless soccer players.

I won a contest! Go me!

So maybe the next step is to start watching less World Cup action. Fortunately, I got something in the mail the other day to help me out with that: A free book! And not just any free book, but a young adult novel courtesy of YA Bookshelf. So now I'll just curl up with this one and remember a blissful childhood spent with Catherine, Called Birdy and Half Magic, but sadly also a childhood free from super fit athletes.

Music, Movies and Zombies

I've been obsessed with this song, Mes Bottes De Sept Lieues by Le Husky for the past week, so I'm linking to it here as a soundtrack for the following links. Have fun and learn something.

1. Ugh, Canada: The saplings around the site of the G20 conference might be torn up. Why? Because "The trees could be ripped out of the ground by demonstrators 'and then you’ve got a huge bar,' said Constable Wendy Drummond, a spokeswoman for the Integrated Security Unit." Yes, a scrawny, vegan anti-globalization protestor will tear one up from the ground and start flinging it around like a bo staff, roots and all. Because such protesters fucking hate tress. And have the strength of the Hulk.

2. Remember how, a week ago, I wrote about The Small Back Room and its wacky alky scene? Well, it seems that The Onion's AV Club is more positively inclined. You can watch the whole thing there and judge for yourself.

3. Should we kill the label of America's Sweetheart? Alyssa Rosenberg thinks so. I'm not totally convinced, except by her argument that Ms Congeniality 2 sucks. Seems like this is almost a case of hating the player and not the game to me.

4. From Tiger Beatdown: Is splicing horror elements into classic literature remixing or just a ripoff? And what are the gender politics of all this? I think Garland Grey comes on a little strong, but at first I thought at least the fact that all the works getting injected with zombies, sea monsters, vampires and the like are written by women was a point worth investigating. Then I found this: Android Karenina. Well then.

It Came From 1962: Old Family Beef And Noodles

Since I needed something in my diet that would provide me with more nutrition that the goodness of gelatin, I turned to the casserole portion of the book. There's no more painful sign of the fact that this book dates to 1962 than the fact that there is no "Main Course" section. Only Casseroles. Even wraps are somehow casseroles. And pork chops. And stuffed zucchini.

Since I was still recovering from the green-tinged madness of last week, I landed on a recipe that was pointedly unadventurous. There's mostly ground beef and noodles in this thing, along with canned tomatoes and mushrooms. That led to this conversation with my Mom:
Me: At least this one has honest-to-god vegetables in it. Even if they are canned.
Mom: Well, couldn't you use fresh mushrooms instead?
Me: Pardon me? St. Zada accepts NO SUBSTITUTIONS. Nutrition be damned!

However, a scant 1/8 of a teaspoon of basil and 1/4 a teaspoon of pepper are all the flavorings you'll get in a large-sized casserole. Even by 1962 standards, when having more than two spices was to be suspiciously continental and perhaps a little light in the loafers, that's sad. So, I played the rebel and - hold on to your pillbox hats, ladies - doubled the amounts! Just don't tell Zada, or her vengeful spirit.

Verdict: Edible.

Splice: Half Human, Half Animal Sampler, All Crap

Oh, if only she had stayed a somewhat mangled Greyhound.

I like sci-fi horror as much as the next gal, although a small, perverse part of me wishes that it was called scifiho, pronounced almost like syphilis. That personal oddity aside, I was very excited to check out Splice last week.

It's directed by Vincenzo Natali, so I was already ready to pay cheap-night prices after watching Cube a few months ago. I had also read some plot spoilers, and figured that if even half of them were true, it would be enough to power cultural studies classes on gender, motherhood and sex for months. Plus, the reviews were good.

THEY WERE ALL LIES. Instead of being an interesting take on the Frankenstein myth, Splice feels like a syndicated action show and is acted like a telenova. I even went with a friend who was excited to see it, but afterwards only had issues with the "depiction of sex and gender" (her Facebook comment, June 2010) in the film.

I could see her point, but felt like that was one of the ways in which the movie did not screw things up completely. For those of you who aren't interested in wasting $8-12 on a ticket, let me give you a brief plot summary. For those who hate themselves, thar be SPOILERS ahead.

Ilsa and Clive are hotshot genetic engineers with racy cover shots on Wired, as one so frequently encounters in life. Knowing that their unit will be closed down and converted before they can succeed in playing with human DNA, they illicitly combine that with their last experiment. And so, Dren is born.

She looks like a bald, bug-eyed human with goat legs and gecko feet. Since Ilsa and Clive have never seen any SF movies, but we have, we are not as surprised as they are when Dren turns out to be a bit of a problem. She's got a stinger and she's not afraid to use it, but the real issue has to do with sex. Not only does she have a creepy round of father figure banging with Clive, but when this changes her sex to male, she also rapes Ilsa.

Since Ilsa used her own DNA to create her and male-Dren kills Clive, it's like s/he gets to have her Oedipal cake and her Electra complex too. Another one of my friends pointed out that the differences between she-Dren (who seduces) and he-Dren (who rapes) are more than a little problematic as well.

However, I'll almost give the movie a pass on that since both modes are part of her monstrous, constructed nature and could, almost, be seen as a critique of assumptions about how natural gender roles are.

Then again, I don't want to work that hard to salvage this movie. And it is a lot of stretching. So, if there is anything radical about it, it's so incoherent that it doesn't even matter.The movie just sucks on its own.

I know I'm a difficult moviegoer, but if a theatre of more generous types is laughing at your showcase scenes, then you've got a problem. Even Sex And The City 2 had some people who took the film seriously.

Canadian Content: The 49th Parallel

Even if you've never visited Canada, you've probably seen it at the movies. However, it might have been called New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles. And the only reason you might have recognized it is if you had brought a Canadian along and they had muttered about how those were Canada Post boxes on the street corner.

However, Canada playing Canada at the movies is a rarer find. So, when I found out that the Archers (AKA Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, my favourite director/producer team in film) made a movie set in Canada and called (of course) The 40th Parallel, I had to rent it.
Now, when I say The Archers are my favorite, that's an opinion based entirely on four gorgeous, fever dream-like movies: Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes, The Life And Death of Colonel Blimp and Peeping Tom. I'm also rather partial to I Know Where I'm Going. And yet, I've been burned by them before, by a stodgy little picture called The Small Back Room, which featured a 8 foot tall bottle of booze as a prop.

The 49th Parallel isn't half as ridiculous, but it isn't half as good as Colonel Blimp either. Powell was pretty direct, even back then, that it was made as propaganda to encourage the Americans to enter the war. And when there's propaganda afoot, awkward speechifying is sure to follow.

The movie follows a group of German sailors who, after their sub is blown up by Canadian airmen, attempt to travel the True North Strong and Free to enter into the United States Then Neutral. Along the way they meet many people, from a French Canadian trapper in the North to a Hutterite farmer on the prairies, who've prepared impassioned speeches to tell them why Canada is so great and will win the war, as if they had expected a troop of Germans to come goose-stepping over the horizon.

Way more exciting than the actual movie, where the closest Olivier gets to an actual woman is about 15 meters.

From there to the end, it's a fairly predictable hike. However, there's one reason to see the movie and that's Laurence Olivier's attempt at a French-Canadian accent. He doesn't quite make it to the Quebec. Hell, he doesn't even seem to make it to France, as it sounds like he got stuck halfway between Scotland and Sweden. It's hilarious. And, to give the man credit, he really makes the plaid flannel work.

It Came From 1962: Ginger's Pineapple And Roquefort Cheese Salad

It's only the second week of cooking and partying like it's 1962 and already I've hit a wall. A wall labeled PEOPLE IN 1962 ATE CRAP.

Okay, not literally, but almost. Which brings us to the second recipe from A Time For Cooking, Ginger's Pineapple And Roquefort Cheese Salad. A few weeks ago, I decided just to pick a number at random and make whatever happened to fall on that page. I realized the folly of that plan when the page happened to contain this... "salad."

I like pineapple. I LOVE Roquefort cheese. I even enjoy stuffed olives, celery and lime jello, the other major constituents in this recipe. However, I've decided that I like them when they're kept far, far apart from each other. Just imagining the flavour sensation of pineapple and blue cheese together was bad enough, without even factoring in the strong tastes of the other ingredients. I shuddered just reading the recipe. But I soldiered on.


Then, I slipped the salad out from its mold. And I felt nauseous. Quivering on a plate sat a big... pile... of bloody mucus. The sour smell of the lime coupled with the earthier scent of the cheese even smelled like vomit. The recipe wanted me to put this thing on lettuce leaves and serve with mayonnaise, but I just couldn't bring myself to do that. I had created my own little torture porn movie with nothing more than a grocery list.

But reader, I ate it. Or at least no more than one slice, the flavor of which I can barely describe. I told someone it tasted like mothballs, not because I've ever tried one, but because that was the worst thing I could think of someone eating at the time. It starts off citrusy and sweet, before suddenly turning salty and sour and, I swear to Christ, MOLDY because of the frigging blue cheese. I couldn't even finish my bit before throwing out the whole thing.

So, from now on I am going to pick randomly, unless it looks like cold molded ass in which case I will move on the next thing that could be passingly edible.

And if I ever meet this Ginger character, I am punching her right in the goddamned face.

It Came From 1962: Molded Feminine Fare

This requires cream cheese, a cup of sour cream, sugar, salt, canned apricots, canned pineapple, cherries and miniature marshmallows. As you might expect from those ingredients, it is filed under "salads."

There's hardly any prep to this thing at all. You just beat the cream cheese, add the sour cream, the sugar and the salt, then mix in the fruit and marshmallows. Put it in a loaf pan and freeze over night and you should be more than ready for your Cribbage Society's meeting in the morning.
Sure, it's a little alarming-looking. And it's worse when you slice it, when it looks like it probably got it's name 'cause it looks exactly like a woodland fairy's menstrual pad. Although that might be my fault for going with the coloured marshmallows.

In any case, it doesn't taste entirely awful. However, it produces enough Feminine Fare to turn even Clint Eastwood femme, so I've been eating it for dinner every single one of that past three days. And now I kind of want to take three Valiums, have an affair with the lawn boy and drunkenly ask my husband for a divorce in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner.

It Came From 1962: The Beginning

Last weekend, there was a $1.00 Used Book Sale at one of my favorite bookstores in the city – S.W. Welch. Actually, I didn’t care all that much that it was at one of my favorite places. The fact that somewhere books could be had for $1.00 was enough. I would have probably shown up if it was run by the Church of Latter Day Saints.

Among the 10 prizes scored that day was this little cookbook. It looks unassuming enough on the outside, but inside this book shares pages with the Necronomicon. Alright, I’ve never read the latter, but I’m sure it would have just as many recipes for gelatin and canned crap salad as this.

The brain trust behind this book is comprised of Zada Taylor, “well known among California librarians” and Betty Herman, “the daughter of the late, beloved Lloyd C. Douglas.” I’m not sure about Mr. Douglas, but I think Ms. Taylor was more well feared than well known, since she starts off the book with a salvo like “A time for cooking is cooking when it is convenient” (But what are your thoughts on fucking, Zada?) and later follows it up with “A good cook never takes the chance of upsetting the balance by subtracting from or adding to the required amounts.”

The shaggy-haired Beats and their bongos may have already started to turn her California topsy turvy by 1962, but by God, their rebellious ilk would be kept out of the kitchen.

Anyway, I’m in love with and terrified by this thing, from the “Idiot’s Delight” on page 14 involving dry onion soup mix, goose liver sausage and sour cream to the “Steamed Salmon Loaf” on page 132. Basically, it’s as if Mary Worth had written a cookbook. And, since I’m about to be bored and unemployed, what better way to pass the time than attempting to cook from it? So, for the next 52 weeks – or until my death from gelatin overdose, whichever comes first – prepare yourself for It Came From 1962.

Tomorrow: I tell you what it’s like to spend three days eating Molded Feminine Fare (page 58.) Here’s a hint: I’m off to my Ladies Bridge Club meeting.