Deathbed Dreams

There are quite a few nice deathbed stories, but I really connect with this one, related by Theodore Dalrymple in The Telegraph:

The Rev Thomas Dibdin tells the story in his book The Bibliomania, or Book-Madness: History, Symptoms and Cure of this Fatal Disease (first edition 1809, 87 pages; second edition 1811, 782 pages) of a bibliomaniac who, on his deathbed, excitedly sent out for books from the catalogue of a bookseller, his obsession keeping him happy until the very moment of his death.

No more lunatics

In a rare show of bipartisanship and civic responsibility, the US House of Representatives has passed a bill to remove the term lunatic from American federal legislation. The vote was 398 to 1. The person who voted against the bill was from Texas, and he said, according to the BBC, and I must say, not altogether unreasonably:

"Not only should we not eliminate the word 'lunatic' from federal law when the most pressing issue of the day is saving our country from bankruptcy. We should use the word to describe the people who want to continue with business as usual in Washington."

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I don't think you won't find nobody

Justin Trudeau's campaign advisor, Gerald Butts, got very negative as he tried to defend Trudeau's remarks in 2010 about Quebecers being more Canadian than Albertans.

"What [Trudeau] was saying, which was not dissimilar from what he said in January ... was that Quebecers see a government that doesn't share their values," Butts said. "And I don't think you could walk down the street of Montreal and not find too many people who would disagree with that." (As reported by the CBC)

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Supermarket Banter

When I reached the cash register at my local Co-op, with my little stock of bread, fruit and vegetables, the cashier asked "Would you like Doris to help you with take-out?" Doris was a frail, smiling, grey-haired lady in her seventies, standing there all ready to bag. Co-op in Calgary, like Walmart and other stores, likes to hire lots of friendly retirees. The cashier himself, a huge black man with snow-white hair, a little out of place among all the ladies, looked to be in his sixties. I looked from one to the other and admitted I needed no help with take-out today, so they proceeded to scan and bag, smiling all the time in the friendliest sort of way. Doris then asked me, as she was no doubt trained to do, if I would be watching the Grey Cup in the afternoon. I knew it was the Western Conference final between the Stampeders and the B.C. Lions, but I like to be provocative, so I said, "Oh, no, I'll be watching tennis. It's the Davis Cup final, very important." Without missing a beat, Doris said "Oh yes, I was talking to somebody last night... Who was it now? Ah yes, my dad. And he was watching curling. I'd no idea there was even curling on, so what do I know? Eh?" And as she handed me my bag, her smile became even broader, more genuine.

Headlines

Another fascinating story picked up by the Calgary Herald:

Man maimed by crucifix he prayed to for his wife's cancer recovery.   Accident sparks lawsuit against Roman Catholic church in Albany.

And still they pray...

Honens' People

The Honens International Piano Competition is held in Calgary once a year and for Calgarians it's a chance to hear some of the best young pianists in the world, playing alone, as accompanists, and with an orchestra. The format includes some free noon-hour recitals and this year I decided to go to one, in the foyer of the Jack Singer Concert Hall in downtown Calgary.

Things didn't start off all too well that morning because it was below zero and there was a good amount of blowing snow, and the bus, which supposedly comes every half an hour, was half an hour late, so by the time I took my seat in front of the beautiful black piano in the foyer, I was a little cold. There was an older lady in front of me who kept looking around for someone, and finally connected with an even older lady sitting next to me, heavily wrinkled, who must have been in her eighties. As I waited the twenty minutes or so for the recital to begin, they chatted happily across me as if I wasn't there at all, so I discovered where they'd parked, what groups they belonged to, what they were planning to do in Banff on the weekend and how one of their spouses' seventy-seventh birthday had gone, without having to ask anything, though being in the group, so to speak, I occasionally felt the urge to request clarification about some detail. Funny little old ladies, I was thinking, filling their retirement up pleasantly and yet emptily somehow, with groups and parties and trips to Banff. I tried to tune them out, but they were so close and articulated everything so clearly that I had to listen to everything.

Then there was a change. The one in front started relating a dream, which of course is always more interesting than talking about real life. Then, in the dream, suddenly she was improvising and incredibly, she said, moving from one key to another with no reason. "I'd be in C sharp minor and then it'd be D major, can you imagine?" "No! You can't do that." "Well, that's how it was, and you know, I was thinking, when you try to analyze what Philip Glass is doing, well, in some ways it's the same thing, like..." And off she went into a complicated technical analysis of the music of Philip Glass, an avant-garde minimalist who I see as about as far away from hiking groups and parking at Safeway as you can get.

The other lady by my side appeared to follow the analysis easily, agreeing and commenting liberally, as I was finally able to tune out, since I didn't understand a thing. I looked around at the other people in the audience, many of them older women. It occurred to me that my two were probably music teachers, and I now imagined that I was probably surrounded by dozens of present and former music teachers, all much more familiar with piano music than I, all more capable of assessing the qualities of the pianist. Because I'm old, I wasn't worried about being seen as an incompetent nincompoop, but I did feel humbled. And then the two women started talking about baking and I was back following the conversation as if nothing had happened.

The recital, by the amazing Ukrainian pianist, Sasha Grynyuk, ended with Gulda's brilliant jazzy Play Piano Play. As the last note sounded and Grynyuk slumped back, the lady at my side jumped up like a five-year-old, clapping and shouting something that sounded like "Yow, yow". I struggled to get to my feet, since everyone else was up now, and turned to look at her again. "Yow, yow," she was screaming, laughing,  applauding furiously, "Yow, yow".

Confusing Signals

Do they really know what they're talking about, these newspapers?

Binders full of women

Enjoyed some of the comments on Romney's remark about getting "binders full of women".

"Please, please, please God, you've never done anything for me in my whole life. Just this once answer my prayer and smite Mitt Romney."



"I don't know what all the fuss is about. Any Mormon male knows that it is common practice to select women from binders."

Canadian Tennis

We all know about the Canadian tennis sensation Milos Raonic, world number 16, who got to the fourth round at the US Open this year. But there's more coming.

Canadian Filip Peliwo, 18, just won the US Open Junior Boy's final! He also won at Wimbledon this year. He is now Junior World Number 1.

He got to all four grand slam finals this year!

Canadian Eugenie Bouchard, 18, is No 2 in Juniors after winning Wimbledon this year.

Things are looking good for Canadian tennis.

We stand corrected

The New York Times is very careful about accuracy:

"This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: May 16, 2012

An earlier version of this article incorrectly said hundreds of billions of euros left Greek bank coffers last autumn. It was less than hundreds of billions." (http://nyti.ms/KmRIIT)

Nomophobia

A nomophobe is someone who is afraid of being out of cell phone contact. A UK study found 53% of mobile phone users became anxious when they lost their phone or were low on battery or otherwise out of contact. The figure was higher among men.


Nomophobia has nothing to do with worries about Michelle Obama dropping out of sight, or fear of being without money, or not having a mortgage. And the terror of  not having a Mormon in the White House still doesn't have a name.

Bing Translations

My Friend Wiroj Kosolritthichai sent out an intriguing message on Facebook:

ทั้งๆ ที่ได้คุยโทรศัพท์กับเขาเมื่อเช้านี้ แต่ทำไมยังไม่เลิกคิดถีงเขา ยังคง คิดถีงแต่เขาตลอดทั้งวัน อยากบอกจังว่าคิดถีงนะคนดี

 I don't understand Thai, so I accepted Facebook's offer to have Bing translate it. The response was swift:

" Despite the talk with him this morning when the phone is, but why haven't quit figured thi thi ngatae ngakhao still think they all day I tell though think thi ngana nice. (Translated by Bing)"

I guess these Bing people don't have much in the way of quality control.

Goblins and Mermaids

Some interesting goings-on in Zimbabwe these days. 

There is apparently a thriving trade in male semen for rituals, so much so that gangs of women are picking up male hitchhikers, giving them sexual stimulants, raping them and collecting their sperm. Three sisters are currently on trial for such an offence. 31 used condoms were found in their car.

And schoolgirls in a southern part of the country are being attacked by goblins. "Parents say their daughters were attacked in classrooms by dwarf human beings which transformed into baboons." The girls are now quite reasonably refusing to go to school. "A goblin is a mythical creature, an evil spirit and there will have to be cleansing rituals at the school if the hysteria continues," said Dewa Mavhinga, a Zimbabwe scholar.

"Earlier this month, Sam Sipepa Nkomo, water affairs minister, said workers had run away from building a dam because it was infested with mermaids. "These mermaids are also Zvikwambo," Mr Mavhinga said." Zvikwambo is the local word that also refers to goblins. (http://tgr.ph/GL8GwE) 

A couple of years ago "A Zimbabwean mother killed her baby son and sold one of his ears for $20 (£13) to a Mozambican witch doctor, police have confirmed."

A Taste of Cherry

Just saw A Taste of Cherry, 1997, by the Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami, which won a Palme D'Or at Cannes. Although the start was not exactly prepossessing, I found the movie more and more interesting as it went on, and it has been resonating strongly with me ever since. 


We all need others in our lives. The standard narrative for this need is the love story. A man or a woman searches for someone to share life with, to love and to cherish, and be loved and cherished by, until death. In some respects A Taste of Cherry is the negative to this positive, a sad undermining of it, in an unfortunate land; in any case, a parallel. Like a love story, it ends as soon as the right person has been found. 


The protagonist is Mr Badii, a middle-aged man searching for someone to shovel earth over him after he commits suicide and lays down in the grave he has already dug beneath a cherry tree on the outskirts of Tehran. In a subtle nod to the more traditional stories we are used to, the first man he approaches thinks he is looking for a gay pickup. But no, he is not looking for sex, or companionship, much less love. His need is absolutely minimal: all he wants from the other is a decent burial, the tiniest shred of humanity. Because a personal relationship like love is not involved, he shows no emotion, no involvement: throughout the movie, he remains expressionless. 


Badii goes about his quest by inviting men who look promising into his 4x4 and driving them around interminable winding dirt roads up and down a hill outside Tehran to the grave he has dug, so they can understand what he wants from them. The constant twists and turns, on which the visuals linger, are of course suggestive of the tortuous nature of any such quest. The setting itself is richly ironic, a dusty area where earth is constantly being moved: groups of men dig holes, presumably for trees, heavy equipment roars around, moving huge quantities of dirt from one place to another. And yet it is hard to get someone to move twenty shovelfuls into a grave. 


As in a parable, Badii meets a series of interesting characters who have different reasons to refuse his request: the construction worker who thinks he is gay, a Kurdish soldier doing his military service who is too shy and simple to accept such an unusual task; an Afghan seminarist whose religion tells him suicide is wrong. Finally, he finds an old Turkish taxidermist, himself tempted by suicide in earlier days, who tries to dissuade Badii by relating his own experience, and how he realized how beautiful life is. However, Badii is adamant, and the taxidermist agrees to bury him. 


The whole movie until now has taken place in the fall and winter, the colours of the landscape invariably a dusty yellow-brown, not without charm in the bright sun, but cool and lifeless. On the night Badii takes his sleeping pills and lies down in the grave, a storm breaks out and the rain pours down. And suddenly now, everything changes, and instead of the story continuing, we witness part of the shooting of a movie: here is the actor who plays Badii, the director giving orders, a bunch of recruits who we'd seen previously marching up the winding road. 


But this is not the movie we have just seen. Here the landscape is exuberantly green, and the soldiers, seen before on a forced march, now stop to rest by the cherry tree. Their joyful boisterousness recalls Badii's happy memories of military life, and nature here is as the Turk saw it, brilliantly beautiful. This is not Badii's empty, lonely world, but a busy, happy, companiable one, one that was before, and can be after. Life goes on, greater and better than the one sad episode we have just seen. Badii's fictitious body, and the rain, and the telling, have provided the stuff to trumpet the possibility of a brighter world. 

The Iron Lady

The Iron Lady is a muddled disaster of a movie about Margaret Thatcher. 


It pulls you in opposing directions and you worry that the director doesn't really know in which one she wants you to go. 


A series of flashbacks on Thatcher's rise to power portray a resolute young woman, brilliantly articulate, who stands up to the male chauvinist establishment and does what she thinks is right for her country without flinching. It seems that we are supposed to have a generally favourable opinion of her, all the more so since little time is wasted on opposing points of view or the disastrous results of some of her policies. Yet the flashbacks which detail her political success story are presented as little episodes of remembrance in the life of a distressed, demented old woman abandoned by her son, without friends, drinking heavily, talking incessantly to her dead husband and worrying about disposing of his clothes. Fully half the movie, I swear, is devoted to following the poor woman around her empty house towards the end of her life, leaving you with an overwhelming feeling of miserable unhappiness and failure. 


Of course, Meryl Streep is amazing in the role of Margaret Thatcher. And the make-up artists Mark Coulier and J. Roy Helland really deserved their Oscar. In fact, you feel obliged to wonder, uncharitably, if it wasn't Streep's perfect acting and Coulier and Helland's exceptional make-up that resulted in the emphasis on the lost, demented side of Thatcher, which they were able to render so well. Kind of sad, if that's the case.  It'd be nice if these movies actually meant something.

Seafood Watch

Seafood Watch is a wonderful site to get information about what fish and seafood are best to buy in terms of safety and sustainability. You can get quick charts and complete reports on each species, so you can see where they are fished, by what method, whether the fishing is sustainable, what pollutants you may be consuming, etc.


Of course, it makes for some sad reading. We probably shouldn't be eating the cod or salmon or Basa that we find in Safeway or at the Superstore...

Amazing McLuhan!

50 years ago, long before the invention of the personal computer, the Canadian academic and visionary Marshall McLuhan foresaw the importance of the computer and the possibilities of the internet. In The Gutenberg Galaxy, published in 1962, he says 

"A computer as a research and communication instrument could enhance retrieval, obsolesce mass library organization, retrieve the individual's encyclopedic function and flip into a private line to speedily tailored data of a saleable kind."

Amazing!

Gobbledegook

More financial gobbledegook from Reuters: 

"Risk-on positioning could continue to be funded by short euro positions following the LTRO," said analysts at BNP Paribas."

Romney

Well, the Romney gaffes are starting to rival the Bush gaffes, except that Romney's are nearly all about how he doesn't understand what it is to be a normal (not super-rich) person.


Asked if he follows Nascar racing, a common pursuit, he says not exactly but he has several friends who own Nascar teams.


Asked about his support for American car makers (he opposed Obama's bailout for the auto industry), he says his family is a strong supporter, and for example his wife has two Cadillacs.