The Book Pile for May 11. 2011

A lot of these have become stalled reads in the past month or so. I'm hoping that publicly displaying my shame will inspire me to get my ass in gear. Or at least inspire me enough to pretend that I've finished reading Moby-Dick.

1. The "Canadian History 101" Read: Northern Armageddon, D. Peter Macleod

2. The "Classic" Read: Moby Dick, Herman Melville

3. The "I suppose getting into SF late is better than never" Read: Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card

4. The "I Miss Required Reading Lists" Read: The American Political Tradition, Richard Hofstadter

Orcas! Orcas, Ahoy!

With May comes many things: flowers, my tax rebate, moving, and the realization that I better step things up if I want to have my BC Bingo card completed on time.

What, you didn't know about BC Bingo? Actually, that's perfectly understandable, because I just made it up. The centre square is "Free," like all bingo cards, but the other squares include "Make Breakfast Quinoa" and "Complain about Albertans." And another square: "See orcas off the side of the ferry." Fortunately, I can dab that one off with the ole Bingo Bright, because this past Sunday a pod of orcas was spotted off the Spirit of British Columbia, the vessel that was transporting my slightly dopey self back to Victoria.

The Captain came over the P.A- we would be passing a pod of orcas off the starboard side soon. Hearing, perhaps, the lack of shuffling, he helpfully clarified, "the right-hand side of the boat." We landlubbers dutifully made our way to the right-board side.

Part of me felt foolish for going. I felt like a tourist. Not the savvy Victorian I was, a Victorian who has seen both Free Willy AND Free Willy 2, and is thus well-versed in the biology, symbology and mythology of orcas. But then I saw them ducking underneath the water, jumping up, and looking black, white and beautiful. They moved on, we moved on, and suddenly I had a new sympathy for the sea parks I had just read about in "The Killer in the Pool." I still think keeping killer whales in captivity is wrong, that it insults their intelligence and our humanity to do so. But I understand why the sea park owners do it, and why so many of us go to see them. Wanting to keep an animal that beautiful is no weak thing, even if that desire translates, on a practical level, into making them smile as grubby children pet their tongues.

Straight White Girls Drinking Coffee #3: I Was Almost a CBC Star!

Ah, finally. The comic strip I promised two weeks ago. I know it's a little wordy, but there was a lot of exposition to get out in this strip. If you're not Canadian, or neglect to tune your radio to CBC, you might be confused. Here are some references, should you require them:

• The Next Chapter, with Shelagh Rogers (book show)
• Q, with Jian Ghomeshi (Canadian arts magazine show)
• Peter Mansbridge (The Voice, The Pate, The Man)
• On the Island (Vancouver Island morning show)

Click to make readable.

The stuff about Ghomeshi and I reproducing is (mostly) a joke. Please no restraining orders. And congrats to Lindsay Cochrane of Toronto, who'll be talking about Guy Delisle's Pyongyang on The Next Chapter. Kick ass and get the good word about graphic novels out there!

Meet Craigslist, The New Hemingway

Hemingway famously wrote a six word story: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." And Craigslist has provided a current version. It's a bit wordier (and comes with photos!), but I feel it contains the same sense of tragedy.

Text: "This album has a lovely detailed plush heart on the front. I was going to use it for wedding scrapbookking[sic] but never did."

Or... maybe this woman had five other wedding scrapbooks she filled instead. We will never know!

Feminine Hygiene: Anna Faris, A New Yorker Article, and Some Feminist Ire

This photo of Anna Faris is either from one of the Scary Movies or a romantic comedy, but the scariest thing is that it works equally well for both.

I like Anna Faris-somehow I survived an entire Scary Movie and concluded that she was the best part of it -but her recent New Yorker profile ("Funny Like a Guy: Anna Faris and Hollywood's Image Problem") has me confused about whether I want her to succeed or not. Sisterhood is powerful, but bitterness lasts forever. Especially the bitterness of wishing, for once, that having "guys want to nail her" would not matter if a woman wants to do comedy.

A "leading agent" tells that to the writer on page 54, and the entire article is full of sad, sad quotes like that one. It should be news to none of you that women- even attractive, white, straight, thin blonde women with breast implants like Faris- do not rule Hollywood. But in this article, that situation is presented so starkly that it left me wanting a drink, matches for my DVD collection, and a good book to read before the cops came to arrest me for arson.

Also notable: Keenan Ivory Wayans's belief that what holds women back from being funny is their innate vanity, because "If Will Ferrell is a girl, and she's got a belly and a hairy back, she's not running down the street naked." Actually, Keenan, if I may pipe up... I'm no Hollywood insider, but I don't think that's what's stopping hairy, fat women from running down the street to the box office bank. Rather it's the legion of American assholes who would surely rise uponce she did, to complain about how she had the audacity to kill their boners.

Which brings me to my least-favourite part of the article, a part I have termed "The Magical Slut Number." For most of the profile, Faris is shown wrapping up What's Your Number?, a romantic comedy and (the article hints) hopefully her big, international break-out role. In the film, a woman reads an article in Marie Claire that says anyone who's slept with more than some arbitrary number of guys will never get married. Unfortunately, she's at that limit. Thus, the plot: tracking down randoms in order to find Mr. Right, ignoring that he's actually right down the hall. God knows, like all women, I conduct every facet of my life in accordance with a magazine with lower circulation than Cosmo.

But what would that arbitrary number be? According to New Regency's Hutch Parker "We thought, would twenty guys be too many for the audience to relate to her?... But if you take that number down- and we though about fifteen, or even twelve- it makes the film less bold." The Magic Slut Number! Too low, and you're not wild enough! Too high, and you scare people. Now, some might say that 20 is not that high of a number for a woman in her thirties. After all, femininity embraced Sex and the City, where even uptight Charlotte probably got her ticket punched more than 20 times in five seasons, much less one lifetime. And New Regency would probably say back to you that you're the kind of dirty whore they don't want in the movie theatre anyway.

At least there was one benefit to reading this article. If some guy ever says to me that the whole "Stud/Slut" double standard does not exist, and is only something angry women bring up while drunk at parties (as I do believe Chuck Klosterman stated, in some form, in Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs), I have ammunition. "Twenty," I will yell, "TWENTY." And then I will mutely point to Anna Faris's face on a bus stop poster.

Summer Resolutions

So, with the completion of my birdhouse a while ago, I am officially 25% finished my resolutions for the year. Already better than last year! This fact has given me a completely unearned sense of confidence, and so I am adding in Summer Resolutions. I'm typing this in a café on an absolutely gorgeous Spring day and so my thoughts have turned to summer. (Sidenote: this day also happens to be Good Friday. If I was more religious, I would approach it with the due solemnity, but as it is, I'm planning on seeing a minor league hockey game, c'est la vie d'athée.) And I have made Plans. Here they be:

Summer Resolutions, 2011

• See an octopus underwater
• Can some fruits and/or veggies (applesauce!)
• Get over my deep, abiding phobia of bicycles
• Read Moby-Dick
• Take up my poor, abandoned clarinet again.

Hopefully, soon, the smells of cooking applesauce and the squawk of my clarinet will fill the air of my apartment.

Three Paragraph Movie Review: Jane Eyre

As the bearer of a B.A. in English, I am contractually obligated to see any and all film adaptations of Great Works of Literature. If Dover ever made a thrift edition from it, and that edition was then palmed off on a desperate screenwriter to adapt, my ass is in a theatre seat. And so, seeing Jane Eyre was a given. But was it any good? Generally yes, although I'm not sure if that's my critical faculties speaking, or my intense appreciation for Michael Fassbender's body... of work.

He's Mr. Rochester, who employs Jane Eyre (Mia Wasikowska) as governess to his French ward. As so rarely happens in real life, but is so delightful in fiction, Jane's fine intelligence and noble resolve win Rochester's heart. But there's a secret prowling around in the attic that threatens the wedding. And it's not the kind of issue all those wedding shows on TLC would lead you to expect.

Sure, both Jane and Rochester should be homelier, but every lit student has given up on that kind of accuracy. And it's not the main problem with the film. It falls down on the pacing, spending too much time dwelling on the horror of Jane's childhood, so that by the time her romance with Rochester comes around, it feels rushed. I might consent to marrying Fassbender's Rochester within months (it feels like minutes on screen) of meeting him, but my brow is not as steely as Jane's. At least every scene is beautifully shot, so if Michael Fassbender doesn't appeal, the light-enfused landscapes surely will.

THIS IS NOT A LIFESTYLE BLOG

Do you see that picture? Doesn't it look perfect? Apple ginger compote, complete with vanilla ice cream. Local vanilla ice cream. You can see pieces of bean in the ice cream, so you know it means business. Basically, I've shot the compote as if I was the camera man for All My Children and I was filming Susan Lucci. Can't you taste the wholesomeness?

Well, this photo is a LIE. I am no lifestyle blogger. And that compote is basically inedible.

As much as I would like to blame the eerily perfect Swedes at Green Kitchen Stories for my failure- the place from which I grabbed the recipe, with its oh-so-Scandinavian whole cardamom seeds- the fault lies not with them. Actually, no fault ever lies with them. I secretly suspect they were cyborgs manufactured by Ikea, so I would feel bad about my imperfect life and try to fill the emptiness with Bjørnsklärn candle holders.

In any case, my problems began when I couldn't find lemon balm leaves at the grocery store, and figured lemongrass would make an able and unique substitute. East Meets West! Perhaps I could blog about this recipe too! And an attractive blond named Sven would love me for it! I had never cooked with lemongrass before though, and didn't realize it was one of those cook with and then remove seasonings, like bay leaves. I chopped it up into a million little pieces, and now a bitter, woody surprise awaits anyone who bites into the compote.

It's only edible if I drown it in ice cream. I have two jars of that stuff -that's a lot of ice cream. Still, even in death we are in life, and even in cooking failure I look towards potential success. Cardamom and ginger-flavoured applesauce is such a good idea, that it has to work somehow. Just with no lemongrass, and ground cardamom instead of crunchy, soapy whole seeds, and an attractive Scandinavian family unit I am importing just for the occasion.

William and Kate and Me

Are YOU watching the royal wedding? Victoria is! The following nuptial-spotting opportunities are on offer in my fair city:

• I could "Rise and Shine" with the Royals at the Fairmount Empress, watching the wedding ceremony at 3AM in pyjamas and robes
• I could Tea and Toast the royal couple at Point Ellice House, "Western Canada’s finest collection of Victoriana in its original setting", where wedding attire is encouraged but hardly required
• Or, I could forget about the wedding until hours after it's past, when someone snarks on a particularly ridiculous hat.

Clearly, the third option is the only one with any likelihood of happening. As much as I enjoy the Royals- and I have looked trough entire issues of Royalty Magazine at my Mom's hairdressers, so I must- I also feel like they are not to be encouraged. Especially when the UK is dropping lord knows how many pounds on a Royal love-in while raising tuition.

But maybe my latent lefty learnings will be smothered in a shower of pomp, circumstance and commemorative plates! If that happens, you can probably find me at Point Ellice House (I'm not posh enough for the Fairmount,) spiking my tea and drunkenly slurring that "Wills was mine, DAMN IT, until that slut Middleton stole him!"

And I'll do it all in gloves.

Straight White Girls Drinking Coffee #2

Errr, evidently I didn't erase my pencil marks completely before getting this scanned. And I'm not at work, so I can't borrow their Photoshop for the duration of my break for a quick fix. Just ignore the ghostly pencil marks, then. It's meta-commentary. About the physicality of the strip.

Next week: True Confession: I Was (Almost) A CBC Star!