December 4, 2005
On the radio
I enjoyed Kate Taylor’s article on the CBC in The Globe this weekend. I must disclose that I’ve only been listening to the CBC since the strike ended this Fall, after reading so much about this invaluable national network that makes Canada Canada I thought it was time that I got in on the action. And I love it. I like Metro Morning, As It Happens, anything about books, The Current, Quirks and Quarks and Definitely Not the Opera is a splendid way to spend away my Saturday afternoon. We also like “The National Playlist”. A part of me regrets I’d been missing CBC Radio my whole life, whiling it away to crappy middle of the road station soundtracks. But it’s never too late. Further, as a result of continued exposure to CBC radio (after all he is unemployed), my English husband knows everything about Canadian politics and current events there is to know. So that is my background.
Now debate is currently centred around the new CBC Radio One afternoon show, Freestyle. I am home in the afternoon two or three days a week (I’m about as busy as my unemployed husband- we’re a household of go-getters you can see) and have listened to the show a number of times and my concensus is this. The format is potentially good. Problems lie in two places. 1) A stupid over-reliance on the internet and the weird wonderful world of the web. It’s very late 1990s and boring now. Perhaps a more thematic format would be too demanding for a daily show, but something must be done. 2) The hosts are unequivocally dorky, awkward and have no chemistry. Perhaps something will develop between them, but now listening to “Kelly and Cameron” makes me cringe.
The problem in no way lies with the music, or with CBC’s movement toward playing pop music. I am an unabashed pop lover, and it’s this movement that has made the CBC so accessible to new listeners like me. Playing popular music doesn’t relegate the CBC to the (low) status of commercial radio, but rather the music in amongst the other fare offered makes for a varied and interesting listening experience. This is the possibility of radio, which commerical stations fail to live up to. I discovered this for the first time when I lived in Britain, and listened to BBC Radio 1, and realised that a top forty station didn’t necessarily have to be Eagle Eye Cherry on repeat and commercials for “Sleep Country Canada”. Before the BBC, radio had been for me an irritating aural experience. Now BBC Radio 1 has its own problems, but it was a pleasure to come home to Canada and see that so much of what I had enjoyed about British radio was present here. By this I mean actual programming. Radio is an amazingly engaging medium, far more potent than television which is purely hypnotic. I don’t think that playing popular music undermines that. Yes, you can hear popular music on commerical radio but not in the context of actual programming, and the context is what matters.
Of course the debate is complicated. This site loves pop more abashedly than I do, and their problem lies with a lack of Canadian content as well. But in her article, Kate Taylor was decidedly wise. She said, “Personally, I think there should always be room for new Canadian music of any kind on CBC Radio One and Two. What I have never been able to figure out is what is distinctively Canadian about Bach and Beethoven. For years, Radio Two has played the music of dead Europeans. Why can’t Radio One now play the music of living Americans and Britons?” Exactly.
And the UK Christmas Number 1 race is off and running. North Americaners, be jealous you can’t be a part of the madness and learn about it here. It’s this tendency for the stupidest obsessions to sweep the UK that I miss here mega-regionalised land. I have fond memories of being swept along with the rest of the nation. The first year I lived in England, Girls Aloud beat out One True Voice (oh the hysteria). The next year, much to my chagrin, Mad World beat The Darkness. I was gutted. This year I am hoping the Pogues get it with their re-release of “Fairy Tale of New York”. But of course I can always get behind Robbie.
December 4, 2005
Pickle Me This Federal Election Coverage
Oh my god Stephen Harper! Stop wearing jackets over shirts that aren’t button-down!
November 30, 2005
A conclusion is imperative
In our house, my stories are a family affair. Stuart invented the main character in my novel, and his imagination is partly behind many others. We’ve been grappling with a short story for ages now, as every ending I cooked up was determinedly dull. Last night, I had just about reached le end de ma tether. As we washed the dishes after dinner, we played “What If” games in fervent effort to develop my plot. Some progress was made. And then today, when Stuart came home, I read him the newest ending and it met with applause. Applause! From my favourite critic. And so boys and girls, my story is done!
November 30, 2005
My Summer Reading Project
I have decided to devote my summer vacation, and indeed I am in long term forecast mode for it is not yet December but, to re-reading novels. Far too many of my books have not been experienced to their full potential, and I want to read them again. So far my reading list includes: White Teeth by Zadie Smith, Howard’s End by EM Forster, Franny and Zooey by JD Salinger, Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood, Headhunter by Timothy Findlay, The Radiant Way by Margaret Drabble, Possession by AS Byatt, Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry, The Fire Dwellers by Margaret Laurence, Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro, Unless by Carol Shields, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith and The Hours by Michael Cunningham. All of these are books I have really enjoyed, but I read some in high school and would like to revisit them, or I read them in university classes and would like to try them without training wheels, or I loved them so much I devoured them without pondering them as much as I should have. As well as rereading novels, I want to read letters and diaries of writers, which I’ve never done enough of.
November 29, 2005
Cool!
Stuart is so cool! He went shopping yesterday with his birthday money/gift certificates, and came home with two CDs that he knew I would like. We got Imogen Heap and the Fembots. They’re both really growing on me.
November 28, 2005
Let Us Solve Your Holiday Shopping Woes…
Why not buy everyone you know a copy of “Spring Comes Suddenly”? Each beautifully designed book is only $5. ~ It’s beautiful poetry, disciplined, accessible and concise~ Bradley Miller, National Newspaper Columnist and Shark-Poet.
Speaking of brilliant quotes, someone emailed this to me today (and I won’t identify them because I don’t want this wonderful person to get in trouble): “She may be a Christian but she’s still a great person!”
In book news, I finished “Snow” by Orhan Pamuk which was worthwhile, but too long to be my in-course-leisure book. After I read “The Finishing School” by Muriel Spark, which is small and beautiful and was devoured in just over a day. Now I am reading “Elizabeth Costello” by JM Coetzee, for a course I have next semester. In further news, my career as TA just finished, as I marked my last paper of the term. And Take That have reunited sans Robbie! I have been humming “Back for Good” all day (mostly because it’s the only Take That song I know, but it’s a good one). Oh yes, we only send out the most important news here at Pickle Me This. Like that Sonia from Eastenders is a lesbian next week!!
November 24, 2005
I am so grateful…
…for my friends and family, who have gone so far out of their way to ensure that Stuart’s birthday is special. He received so many wonderful gifts and cards. And we had a lovely birthday dinner out tonight with Erin, Jennie, Steve and Carolyn. And I feel so lucky to have friends that treat my husband so well, which I think might have more to do with his absolute goodness than their devotion to me, but all the same it’s so important to me.
… and to Stuart, who has just shared a third birthday with me. We spent the first in England, where I baked a cake that exploded in the oven. The second was in Thailand atop the Porn Ping Hotel, where I bought a cake with a monkey on it from the grocery store. I baked cupcakes this year, which almost proceeded without incident, until I didn’t have time to let the last batch cool and threw them all in the container, and they all got mushed and mangled, and I gave away the only one that wasn’t to a homeless man with one leg. He liked it though, and so did our friends. And I promise to bake a cake from scratch for you every year for always.
(Today we bought winter boots. The upside is that they were 2 for 1. The downside of course being that we now have the same boots.)
November 23, 2005
Knock Down Ginger?
Since March 15 2003 (and I know the date for a fact, because the issue was raised by this article), we at Pickle Me This have been embroiled (and our former roommate Matthew may also have been involved if I remember correctly) in a debate regarding the name of the activity wherein you knock on door only to run away, leaving the door’s owner to an empty front step. Zoe Williams in the Guardian called it “Knock Down Ginger”, while Stuart claimed it was called “Knock a Door Run.” But I knew it as “Nicky Nicky Nine Doors” which made even less sense than Zoe Williams’ suggestion. I was excited tonight to come across this article– a list of Canadian regionalisms of which number seven is:
7. Nicky Nicky Nine Doors/Knock On Ginger
The Canadian Oxford Dictionary team took it into their heads to ask Canadians the crucial question of what they called the activity of knocking on someone’s door and running away before the door is opened. It seems that mischievous young Ontarians call this “nicky nicky nine doors” whereas western pranksters call it “knock on (or down, or a-door) ginger.” Each group thinks the other’s name is ridiculous.
I am pleased this issue has been given the consideration it deserves by the dictionary people, though of course this doesn’t mean the debate is settled. Oh no it doesn’t.
November 22, 2005
Ursa Major, Asia Minor
I went to see Joan Didion last night, and tears came to my eyes as they always do whenever I’m in the presence of legendary people I’m in awe of. And I am in awe. She read a passage from “The Year of Magical Thinking” which if I was in the hardover-buying-income bracket I would own by now but alas. It was painful to hear, but also wonderful to hear because of her voice. And then there was an interview, which wasn’t particularly illuminating, but it was interesting, and she signed my copy of “Slouching Towards Bethlehem” (which I first read on a bullet train to Hiroshima in July 2004).
The Guardian revisits Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. On the brilliantly readable Hilary Mantel.
I am writing an essay now, and have to mark papers all weekend. But tomorrow I will be feting it up for my beloved husband’s first Canadian birthday. I’ve got to bake him a cake. In other exciting news, we are planning a rather grand Christmas party. And I miss Brighton, Basford, Tokyo and Budapest all at the same time. Oh, and congratulations to the Lui/Doerings who became engaged Sunday night with all the ceremony one might expect from such an event.
November 21, 2005
Found
For your own sake read “OTHER PEOPLE’S BOOKMARKS: FELLOW WANDERERS OF A FORGOTTEN REPUBLIC: IN WHICH WE CONSIDER THE LIVES OF STRANGERS BY WAY OF WHAT THEY LEAVE BEHIND IN BOOKS” because it’s wonderful. On what should really be on the Canadian Citizenship test. The great Ivor Tossell writes about uTOpia here and rather hilariously on instant messaging here. Jimmy Carter on America. And on freedom of speech.
We caught some of the Parade du Pere Noel today. It was lovely, though nobody mess with moms of toddlers who’ve been waiting since this morning to get a good seat. Other weekend highlights were dinner at Carolyn B’s in Thailand, and a visit from my sister. Now go read your books you silly woman.
