Vancouver Bound

I'll be in Vancouver for the next three days with my lovely friend Ms. C. Have a good weekend, y'all!

Gardening: Science, Faith, Slugs

A successful slug hunting mission. Die, mollusks, die.

Gardening. It's supposed to be rewarding. Your own hands raised that kale in the kale and tomato pasta you're about to eat. Same with the kale in the kale salad you just finished. And the kale chips you have as a side. And the kale cheesecake that's for dessert.

There's a lot of kale when you garden, is what I'm saying. It's unkillable and even the slugs don't like the stuff. Unlike your precious basil, which like your dreams of a Summer of Pesto, lies in tatters thanks to their slimy ways. Something like Murphy's Law is at work when you garden, except instead of anything that could possibly go wrong doing so at the worst possible time, everything you actually want to eat will wither right before it's ready and you will be left with fields of kale.

A second law of gardening: the outcome is inversely related to the level of input. Whatever you fertilize, prune and stake with the greatest of care will still only be tenuously clinging life- or at least the aforementioned stake is still keeping its withered carcass upright- while the rhubarb you've completely ignored is doing just fine. Which means, on the bright side, it's time for pie.

And, just when you think gardening can be reduced to a series of laws as well-defined as those for thermodynamics (looking at my lemongrass, the concept of entropy does spring to mind), the supernatural steps in. Your swiss chard resurrects (Christianity). And you smush a slug, creating something not unlike a John Carpenter movie (Satanism).

Straight White Girls Drinking Coffee #5: Marty Trail in Magnificent Marmots

Yes, the place who scanned this cut off a few words. No, I can't bring it back. Why? Because I damaged the original. Just make up your own words, okay?

Anyway, if you don't know why Mark Trail is, now is the time to brush up on everyone's favourite smuggler-punching park ranger, and his hideously-skulled family. Check out the Comics Curmudgeon's archive here.

And find out more about the Vancouver Island Marmot here.

(Click to enlarge)

Please Check Out Criminal: The Last of the Innocent

Those waiting for that gritty Archie reboot had two choices, up until this year. Either read so far into their Double Digests that even university professors would shake their heads, or try to track down a copy of Return to Riverdale, the live-action TV movie that featured a ten-years-older Archie, Betty and Veronica in dueling lingerie, and a sexy Big Ethel. Unfortunately, Return to Riverdale also showcased rapping single dad Jughead and his hellspawn*, so few ever chose the latter.

God, why?

However, Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips heard their prayers, or at least read their fan fiction, and so the newest story arc of Criminal was born. Criminal: The Last of the Innocent has only released one issue so far, but I would recommend buying that first book and any others. Phillip's art transitions easily between his usual hard-boiled chiaroscuro and a more cartoonish, Dan DeCarlo-inspired look. Brubaker's writing, in contrast, keeps to a straight, bitter line. Richie Richards/Archie Andrew's youth is as full of sex and lies as his adulthood, even as the stakes have gotten higher, leading to the intriguing- if depressing- conclusion that the innocence of childhood is more a matter of perception than reality.

*I know this because I own Return to Riverdale on DVD. Thank you, Canadian Tire $2.99 movie bin.

Paying For It: The Hidden Costs of Chester Brown

There's some R-rated content in this post. Please stop reading if you're underage, squeamish, or my Mom.

I bought Chester Brown's Paying for It when it came out a few months ago, read it in a night, felt dirty, showered, tried writing about it, showered again and then palmed it off a friend so he could read it as well.

So, I've had a pretty good excuse for not writing about it (no source text to refer back to), and it's not like I really need to anyway- reviews appeared everywhere, from the expected likes of The Comics Journal, to the more pedigreed pages of the New York Times Review of Books. Thirty years ago, the NYT would have never run a review of a graphic narrative, much less one about a john waxing autobiographical, and particularly not one that would move the reviewer to describe the author as looking like "a praying mantis with testicles." That reads like progress to me. Comics: Not just for kids! ... SERIOUSLY, the children will be traumatized.

Mostly, I found that the reviews spoke more to Paying for It's merits as a polemic, and any conclusions to the reviewer's own position on prostitution. Compare this negative review by Matt Seneca to the positive one in the Times, "But I would hope that righteous, human indignation at Brown's exploitation of a pre-existing problem will flare up and remain as long as it can..." versus "Mr. Brown’s illustrated memoir is exactly what it sounds like, a frank and guileless account of his predilection for paying women to have sex with him."

Likewise, my ambivalence about Paying for It could be a reflection of my own ambivalence about prostitution. As a good quasi-Third Waver, the kind who has picked up at least one copy of Bust, I know I'm supposed to be pro-sex work, but practically I remain suspicious of the actual power dynamics in many sex-for-cash transactions.

Sidenote: This is an ambiguity that was strengthened by my year spent toiling in one of the dustier reaches of the smut world. Not as a sex worker (or, as Brown so charmingly calls them, a whore), but as a porn reviewer. I would go from reading some porn star's bio, where she would claim how liberating her career was, to seeing videos of her getting brutally DPed. Now, those guys, like most male pornstars, would have been paid significantly less than our busty babe for that scene. But all that- the salaries, the personal manifestos, the hopes, the anti-itch creams, form a context that is likely uninteresting to the average viewer. Because, if you ponied up 40$ a month for a site called DoubleStuffedSluts.com (or whatever), you know what you want. And that's not a fully actualized woman- it's what's in the sitename.

Even if I could suppress my personal shudder factor though, I doubt I would like Paying for It any better. The 40$ cover price in effect buys you two books- the graphic memoir portion, and the hand-written essay on why prostitution should be decriminalized in the back, but neither justifies forty bones. Or even twenty.

Let's start with the Appendix. It's a frustrating read, showing that Brown has done his research, and documented it in full. However, that documentation is also a map of a certain kind of logical thinking, the kind that blazes a path straight through any uncomfortable conclusions to a self-serving destination. For example, Brown works through every experience he had with foreign-seeming prostitutes, just to see if he was somehow involved with trafficked women. And of course, he decides that he never was. The most irritating piece of evidence was that one of the brothels had an ugly prostitute, which in Brown's mind meant they were necessarily all voluntary employees, because why would sex traffickers pick up an uggo? That's not his exact wording- Brown often strikes a tone of stilted chivalry- but is his general point.

I would say it's perfectly likely that, while sex traffickers would prefer conventionally attractive women, they would still find a use for a "monster in a miniskirt." Some guys need a cheaper lady. Some genuinely like women who look like that (please see above for how I would know this.) Either way, they're going to be able to exploit someone. I have no evidence that was the case when Brown paid them a visit, but at least I will admit that I don't know, unlike Brown, who knows he is right all of the time, and would like you to know that too.

Few policies are wrong, or misguided in this appendix-they're all EVIL. It seems to be one of Brown's favourite words after "whore." And even when he's found some individual cases of evil outcomes- like the abuses in Nevada's system of legalized prostitution- he extrapolates from these incidents to write off more general ideas. Just because it's done one way in Nevada, does it follow it would have to be the same way in Ontario? Brown says yes- next point please.

Even if you skipped the last half of the book and focused on the part with pictures, Paying for It disappoints. In Louis Riel Chester Brown's simplified faces and frozen forms seemed epic, allowing the reader to impose and explore their own interpretations of the Métis hero in their blankness. Here, they just feel small and unfinished. The decision to obscure the prostitute's faces is more problematic, even if it is understandable. Few of the women could probably be found at this point to give their consent to be drawn, and it seems like those Brown actually asked, didn't. But it's hard not to see the parade of prostitutes as anything but tits and ass when that's all you see of them.

Oh, Chester Brown, I love The Playboy and Louis Riel so much, that maybe I'm seeing too many flaws with Paying for It in comparison. Or maybe I just resent making a contribution to the Chester Brown Gets Laid Fund. Either way, I'll be shelving this one in the back, covered by better books, but at least not by a brown paper bag.

Bill Simmons: In which B.S. is literal

I liked Bill Simmons, but I shouldn't have. There were warning signs. The love for the forces of Evil embodied by all Boston sports teams. The quality he has, native to that same city, of sounding like he's SHOUTING even when he's not. What is it? An intonation? A cadence? Is every Bostonian dictating a telegram at all times? "YES. LARRY BIRD. THE. LEGEND." But, most telling of all, he was buddies with Adam Carolla, King of the Douchenozzles.

But I couldn't resist his eagerness, and so I would listen to his podcast regularly. Even when he was talking about some random point guard, or whatever, he made me care because he seemed to know every statistic, every play, from memory. He was an earnest beacon in the gloomy age of Deadspin. But then he started Grantland- a hot stew of 6 parts sports, 3 sports pop culture and 1 part Klosterman- and my love died.

I called the time of death at 9:13pm last night, after finishing "Hackery in the First Degree," Simmons's rant about The Killing's season finale. I'll admit that I haven't seen a minute of any of the Killing's first season, much less the finale, so I won't speak to his issues with the show. But I will talk about his issues with women. Or, more pointedly, his apparent belief that there is an implicit, but binding, contract that requires all female leads on TV to reach basic standards of hot-itude. "Our heroine" he writes "was a redheaded detective named Sarah Linden, a poorly written character who didn't wear makeup, kept her hair in a sexless ponytail, and wore the heaviest sweaters anyone has ever worn on television."

You could, at least, blame CSI for that statement, since that show and its many clones demonstrate- nightly- that a woman's greatest investigative strategy is to bend over and thrust her cleavage in the general direction of a cadaver. Also, that foot chases are best conducted in stiletto heels, whether they're over New York City pavement or Florida swamp. But CSI can't be blamed for this:

I think they were trying to humanize Linden, which was obviously hard because you can't humanize a "strong" female character when she's dressing like a lumberjack.

I'm still trying to parse that statement. Maybe Bill Simmons meant to say that The Killing did such a poor job of characterizing Sarah Linden that her wardrobe had to do all the work. And he just worded it so that what it sounds like he's saying is "Practically-dressed women can't be compelling characters." Or maybe that is what he meant to say, and Carolla's rampant asshattery is contagious. I would love to think the former. Come on, Simmons was there for the '90s, so he's seen Fargo, and there's no way Marge Gunderson in her sensible parka is anything but human and wonderful. But I can't. He just seems so aggrieved in the rest of the article, entitled to a resolution in the first season, or at least a spoiler when that didn't happen, that I feel he sees himself entitled to a hot actress too. Even if it defies all sense of reality to have a busy homicide detective put on a full face before going out. All The Killing owed him was a well-written season, something it evidently failed to do, but it never really needed to succeed at finding Bill Simmons a sexy actress.

R2D2 Hat

P, a Preferred Coworker, had a birthday a few weeks ago. Since he solves all InDesign problems (they are legion) and washes orphaned dishes (they are many) I knit him a hat.

But not just any hat.

An R2D2 hat!

Ta da! Pattern comes from Carissa Knits, yarn is SandnesGarn Smart Superwash. I wasn't crazy about all the duplicate stitching, but I can't think of a better alternative, considering my aversion to intarsia and seaming hats. Crochet, maybe?

A Mason Bee Box

The beginning of June was kind of wacky, and busy, and felt not unlike May. Which, incidentally, happens to be the last month I've posted in. I know where the blame lies though. With my calendar, which I have left on May up until today. Subliminally, I must have THOUGHT it was still May, and thus had no inclination to do any of the things I was supposed to do for June.

Sounds like science to me.

Anyway, one other thing that was accomplished today: I made a bunch of these mason bee boxes. Yes, I am finally a bee slumlord. The screens on these babies are never going to be fixed, I tell you what. Nor will the pipes ever be replaced.

They're super easy to make, especially if you have some spare 4x4 lying around. Then you just angle one end, drill a bunch of deep holes, add some overhang and hang it up near some flowers. If, like me, you do NOT have some spare 4x4 lying around, then you will have to buy a standard 8 foot piece at the lumber store, get it cut into two more manageable pieces, and then endure the clerk's snarky remarks (Eg "Oh, the bus driver is going to LOVE you. Good luck with that.") You will then leave half of it on home and carry the rest to the nearest public transit, where the bus driver will INDEED love you as you ferry it aboard and all the way to Saanich.

After that, you can repeat the previous steps, starting with the sawing.

In Which I Face My Two-Wheeled Phobia

Only one thing scares me more than zombies.

Bicycles.

At least zombies can be killed with a shot to the head. Bikes can keep going forever, mocking you and your lack of balance. Well, if you're me. If you're a normal person, you're probably already cycling around town, accordion music playing in the background, a baguette and carrots with leafy tops in your basket, free as a bird and not in imminent danger of death by truck.

Those issues are why last Saturday marked the first time in about ten years I touched a bicycle. But I didn't just touch a bicycle. I paid for the bicycle, got on the bicycle, and then rode it to a scrapped knee in downtown Victoria.

My chariot came from Recyclistas, one of those places that sells old bikes, builds bikes from spare parts, rents out tools and smells suspiciously... earthy. The journey there was just as exciting as a store. It involved a stranger's bodily fluids, a missed bus, a broken computer and a detour along a sidewalk-free expanse of highway. Oh, and I spotted of a pair of California Quails. Tragically though, I had left my rifle at home, so I couldn't bag some trophies.

To be difficult, I didn't pick a cute European road bike or cruiser. Instead, I came home with some hideous Korean mountain-bike knock off, with with a horn that sounds like a clown's nose and a bunch of holographic stickers. The nice Recyclista man was briefly impressed that the person who could barely ride a bike could tell that it was Korean. Then I pointed out the three South Korean flags on the frame.

In honour of its proud nationality, I have named it Bikegolgi. I have now ridden Bikegolgi three times, and I'm still alive, but barely. Seriously, why don't seemingly normal people, including the entire population of Amsterdam, find the bicycle completely terrifying? It's your fleshy, squishy self on two paper clips and a set of wheels! It's wrong! WRONG!

But I will do it again tomorrow.

Book Covers I Have Loved: Cheers! by Nicholas Pashley

Don't worry. Unless you're seeing four noble Mounties (those proud inheritors of tradition/purveyors of police brutality) on your monitor, you're still sober.

This cover is cheeky and perfect for a book on Canadian beer history, although perhaps a little expected. Still, considering that it avoids the maple leaf/hockey skate/beer bottle troika of clichés, I believe it deserves our appreciation. And maybe a round of drinks.

Cheers! A History of Beer in Canada, by Nicholas Pashley