Do We Need This?

The CBC is promoing its movie about the Halifax Explosion. That's all well and good, but how's it going to top one of the best Heritage Moments?

Family

Most will miss my sister's comment to the Ups and Downs piece:

wow sometimes it's so clear to me why we're related-- i loved kolbert's article too! and russo! and bonfire! and i also write to companies telling them they suck -- i've scored chocolate (aero), shampoo and conditioner, and vouchers for the train.

aw, brudder.

For the record, when I was 11, I had a homework assignment that consisted of writing a proper letter to a corporation. I wrote the WWF and complained about two of their characters - The Beveryly Brothers, heels (villains) who were supposed to be gay. I was inspired by a segment I heard on As It Happens, which followed a performance in Vancouver. I wrote that it was offensive, but I never stopped watching.

Social justice! Cranky letters to customer service! All in the family!

Joey Rats

Readers respond...

I've been thinking about your old blog posting about Catholicism and Orthodox Judaism, and I've decided that's there's something very wrong with your insistence that the point of the Catholic Church is not to change. I can see your point about it (and Orthodox Jews) representing a conservative strain of a diverse variety of beliefs, but the problem is that Catholicism is not a philosophical set of ideals that you chose, and can renege on, as a mature adult, like Communism or Noe-liberalism or say Kanitism (?). It's a living community, in which people are included into at virtually the moment of birth. A Catholic is brought up in this community, and taught, again from birth, a moral mindset based on the precepts of the teachings of Ratzinger and Wolyita (sic?) and so on. To disagree with Catholicism, to find it too conservative or unresponsive, is not to have a philosophical disagreement with the old white guys in Rome. It's to refuse the act of communion-which, as much as it is a sacrament remembering Christ's sacrifice, is more importantly a communal meal, which demonstrates membership in your community-a community, remember, which you're born into and, if raised "correctly', is all you know. It takes enough courage to reject the world view which you've been taught since birth, it takes much more to refuse communion with your friends, neighbours and family. I know-on the odd occasions when i end up at Mass, I find it difficult to not take communion, even though my conscience is quite clear that I should not be taking part in a sacred right which demonstrates adherence to all sorts of crazy, and dangerous, doctrines. So your point about the Catholic Church being conservative by definition is premised on the idea of the Catholic church as a set of theological beliefs. It's not, it's a community of believers. And the Pope-father, remember, Shepperd of his flock and so on, has a duty to these believers who look to him as spiritual leader. And his duty should not be to condemn them to death by refusing to allow people to use condemns, or to destroy the planet by opposing birth control. And I imagine the same goes for Orthodox Judaism.

The view from the inside, I suppose. I think what I disagreed with so vehemently following JPII's death was the notion, lurking beneath the surface of much of the commentary about the future of the church, that Catholicism was somehow more authentic and closer to God than its competitors. I suppose that notion is defensible, given the huge number of Catholics in every corner of this globe. But the idea that those who had lapsed from the church, either by choice, by drift (like Bruce Springsteen, who compared watching the reports of BXVI to hearing about a blockbuster trade involving a team you no longer root for) or by force (homosexuals, for instance) were kicked out of God's inner circle is really insulting.

If, among mainstream Christianity, Catholicism is supposed to be the stalwart right wing or if it merely happens to be isn't a distinction I'm yet prepared to recognize. The Pope should not be condemning his followers to die; but insisting the church change its ways despite the myriad of viable, attractive spiritual options (many of which having arisen out of the same text) isn't so much admirable as it is sad.

Customer Service

The best customer service I ever received was from Nestlé. After buying a Kit Kat bar that had no wafer in it (it was just four slats of solid chocolate), I rang up the toll-free line and explained the situation to a friendly staffer. She told me this sort of thing happens from time to time, and that coupons for two free Nestlé chocolate bars were on the way. Days later, the coupons arrived, along with an extremely detailed account of what probably occurred (with the wafers no-showing) and why. Though some stores refused the coupons, all was right with the world. I still have that letter. If I had a scanner, I'd post it. A thing of beauty.

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that the Coinamatic laundry card refill machine in my lobby had changed. Gone was the old machine that accepted any bill; this new one, which actually involved more steps, only takes tens and twenties. Naturally, when you want to do laundry, the only money you're bound to have lying around is the kind that doesn't fit in the machine (don't get me started on the fact that it doesn't accept change). And filling your card with $20 for $5 worth of laundry seems like a dicey proposition - what good does my $15 do sitting unused in the card machine? Wouldn't it be better to stimulate the local economy by, I don't know, buying some gum, or something?

In any case, having to go out in the rain to get change for a twenty was no fun (it also led to the purchase of a late-night latte, followed by a fitful night of no sleep. Fuckers). So last week I decided to email Conamatic and let them know that this new system was something of a step backward - and to find out how this sort of decision gets made. If Malcolm Gladwell thinks that decisions made in an instant - without pause for second thought - are ideal, or at least worthy, surely some drawn-out consultative process must have led to the creation of the Shitty Laundry Machine. Perhaps there was some kind of government intervention that forced Coinamatic to dampen its competitiveness to level some kind of laundry-machine playing field. A reason shouldn't have been hard to find. Anyhow, here's the full email exchange between myself and the customer service rep (with names removed to heighten the mystery). The lesson: smarminess begats smarminess - not answers:

-----Original Message-----
From: XXXXXXXXX
Sent: Monday, May 23, 2005 2:04 PM
To: customerservice@coinamatic.com
Subject: what happened to the $5 bill machines?

Dear Coinamatic,

Recently, your company installed a new card refill machine in my apartment building in Montreal. The old machine accepted $5 and $10 bills. The new one will not accept fives, meaning you've got to pump your card up with extra cash, when all you really need is about five or six bucks to do a couple of loads. As five-dollar bills are more common than tens, and loading a card full of twenties is excessive, what's the rationale? Seems like an all-around bad decision.

Thanks,
XXXXXXX

----

Hi XXX

Thanks for your email. I appreciate you contacting us with your concern.

The reason why we eliminated the 5.00 bill is because we were experiencing an influx of extremely upset customers resulting in service calls due to the bill continuously jamming the bill acceptor. We conducted a national study with our other branches across the country and found the results unanimous.

In conclusion, by replacing the bill acceptor we have eliminated a lot of aggravation and service calls.

---

What specifically about five-dollar bills caused the bill acceptor to jam? And if the maching jamming is a concern, why not have a slot for coins?

---

To be honest XXX, I'm not exactly sure why the frequency is higher on the 5.00 bills.

In regards to coins, this is the reason why the decision for reloader machine was installed at your location was to avoid coins. It's much more of hassle to gather exact change instead of using bills.

Make of it what you like - I'm actually surprised at the quality of the response, given what a jackass question that first email is. Then again, life is worth little without moments like those when "we have eliminated a lot of aggravation" and "it's much more of hassle to gather exact change instead of using bills" come across the daily terrain.

By the way, the customer service rep's point was valid; according to the Bank of Canada, $5 bills are not meant to last as long as twenties, which might explain why they have a habit of instigating angry phone calls. One last question: why do crown corporations get to have Web sites that are much cooler than the look & feel of the Government of Canada?

You Didn't Think I'd Forget

Happy 64th, Bob.

Old-Fashioned

On a more serious note, Sunday's New York Times Magazine features Sen. Rick Santorum in its cover story. "The Believer" doesn't tell you much you couldn't glean from paying attention to domestic U.S. politics during the last two years, though reporter Michael Sokolove tries his best to portray Senator "Man-on-dog" as nothing more than an earnest, decent guywho happens to be a major player in the legislative branch, despite his real desire to be a full-time gardener and father of six.

As nauseatingly dull as it is to read about this guy, Sokolove does reveal one nugget I didn't already know, that prior to serving in the House, Uncle Rick was a lobbyist for, you guessed it, the World Wrestling Federation.

That's right, good ol' Catholic, family-fun, sports entertainment.



As his brother says, "'Rick has always been that way, in anything he has ever done... We were, for the time, good practicing Catholics, but Rick took it further.'" If there's one thing you've got do with the ol' WWF, it's take its misogyny, its xenophobia and its violence-for-kids, and take it further.

The saddest part is that you know he'll run for president someday, and he'll probably win.

Things That Are Not News

Any story that involves the phrase, "buyer beware." CBC, you've been notified.

New York Minute

Today's Times includes a shocking report about the origin of all of New York City's famous hot dogs (I could so scarf down about six Gray's Papaya dogs right about now). Turns out, they all come from the same source: a trucker's dirty toenail Marathon Enterprises, of East Rutherford, N.J., henceforth to be known as MetaDog Industries. (It should be noted, Gray's adds a "special ingredient" to the hot dog, uh, batter, I guess.)

We also learn everything we need to know about life in New York from this piece:

On the other end of the price scale, New York has hot dogs that approach the $20 barrier. The Old Homestead serves an 11-ounce footlong made from American-raised kobe beef for $19. I found it mushy and bland, and not redeemed by the white truffle mustard, the kobe beef chili, the Vidalia onions, the Dutch bell peppers and the Cheshire Cheddar sauce that accompanied it. For the same price you can have a Gray's Papaya special of two stupendous hot dogs and a papaya drink ($2.45) for a week and still have change in your pocket.

I think Ed Levine just might have a Pulizer Prize all lined up. What he doesn't tell us, and what I'd like to know, is how you become a member of The National Hot Dog and Sausage Council. Perhaps the Times will run a follow-up tomorrow. Then again:

But when you are surrounded by screaming Mets fans at Shea or Cyclones fans at KeySpan Park in Coney Island, and the score is tied, and you bite into one of those less than exemplary franks slathered with mustard, you just might be having the peak hot dog experience of all.

Amen, sela.

Impossible?

Today's missions:

1. Determine whether a kitchen island is appropriate. If so, find a decent, inexpensive one. Purchase it.
2. Answer the age-old question. If your large windows (several feet in height - like five) open in, what kind of blinds/curtains do you buy?

You can taste the excitement.

Ups and Downs

If this blog has been a little quiet lately, it's partially because I've been catching up on some reading. I finished Bonfire of the Vanities, which held my interest from start to finish. In retrospect, I think I liked Bonfire so much because it reminded me of the best work of my favourite author, Richard Russo. (His Pulitzer Prize-winning Empire Falls will premiere as an HBO movie in the next few weeks.) There are few writers producing today whose books gather momentum as they go on, rushing you to the finish, even though you'd rather stop and savour the story. Russo's strength is in writing deeply compelling characters, using their quirks to propel the story further. His novels are cinematic (he also wrote Nobody's Fool, which eventually starred Paul Newman), full of wide, sweeping scenes and the detailed minutiae that makes writing magical.

I got through Jonathan Safran Foer's highly-anticipated Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, the follow-up to his superb Everything is Illuminated, and I loved it. The story is that of Oskar Schell, New York's most intelligent and imaginative nine-year-old, the son of a victim of the September 11th attacks. The book is about Oskar's touching quest to unlock a secret he thinks his father has left for him; it takes him all across the five boroughs, using his charm and inspiring wit to make friends and get closer to his father before he can let him slip away. Foer, who is about my age, is a marvelous writer, using word and image to tell a haunting and gorgeous tale. Books like these make life beautiful.

More recently, I finished the three parts of Elizabeth Kolbert's New Yorker essay on climate change. Kolbert, whose 2001 article "Ice Memory" remains one of my favourites, tells the harrowing tale that is the story of Earth in the twenty-first century. Her piece touches on science, archaeology, environmental forecasting and politics, and stresses some important points. First, the "debate" about climate change is nothing more than partisan hackery. It is accepted science that human beings are contributing to the greenhouse effect and climate change, and that we can do something to prevent the worst-case scenario. Second, there's no time to act like the present. If we don't get our act together and slow the course of global warming, we're fucked. Global warming is basically impossible for humans to reverse; its effects serve up a perverse side dish: they speed up the process. Ten more years and all could be lost. The fact that we might not suffer the consequences of our actions today for another hundred years, like the U.S. deficit, is a crime against future generations. Finally, the U.S. government is complicit, if not an eager spectator, in the unnecessary damage being done to our planet. Kolbert's third installment lays out our options: B.A.U. (business as usual) or some combination of fourteen enviro-technological "wedges" that would impede climate change. The Bush administration, in walking away from Kyoto, heaping its scorn on its own scientists and pathetically insisting that developing nations clean up first, has the ball, but it won't run with it. Kolbert concludes: "It may seem impossible to imagine that a technologically advanced society could choose, in essence, to destroy itself, but that is what we are now in the process of doing."

Read "The Climate of Man" - I urge you. Part one. Part two. Part three.

Next up: Louis Menand's The Metaphysical Club, which seems to be abook about ideas and knowledge among ruling Americans. Antidote.

Unwired

WiFi in the eye of the storm. Works surprisingly well. All I need is a laptop, a Wireless Media Player and my friend's collection of ~500 divx movies, all on CD and DVD (oh yeah, I need a DVD-reader on my PC too).

Giddyap.

Queries

• Am I the only one endlessly entertained by the way Google filters ads for this site? Oh yeah, a handful more clicks and I get a quarter. Freakin' sweet.
• Does anybody enjoy Daybreak?
  
  
  
  
• Anybody know how I can get my hands on a pair of tickets to one of Madeleine Peyroux's sold-out shows at the Jazz Fest?
  

The One-Line Movie Review: The Interpreter

The mysteriousness of Nicole Kidman's face will not save this international incident "thriller," no matter how slick the production or how elaborate the story.

Clarity

GWB, Februay 4, 2005:

Because the — all which is on the table begins to address the big cost drivers. For example, how benefits are calculate, for example, is on the table; whether or not benefits rise based upon wage increases or price increases. There's a series of parts of the formula that are being considered. And when you couple that, those different cost drivers, affecting those — changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get what has been promised more likely to be—or closer delivered to what has been promised. Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled. Look, there's a series of things that cause the — like, for example, benefits are calculated based upon the increase of wages, as opposed to the increase of prices. Some have suggested that we calculate — the benefits will rise based upon inflation, as opposed to wage increases. There is a reform that would help solve the red if that were put into effect. In other words, how fast benefits grow, how fast the promised benefits grow, if those — if that growth is affected, it will help on the red.

Something's happening...

Mr. Ross knows what it is. The New Yorker's indispensable Alex Ross (his majestic take-down of "classical" music is here) checks out Dylan during a five-night run at the Beacon (where I met Paul Simon and sat across the aisle from Edie Brickell. I am such a name-dropping douche tonight) and lives to tell about it.

DVD Afternoon in Canada

This Saturday's presentation was Hannah and Her Sisters, Woody Allen's 1986 film. Those who have called it his best are not far off. Though not as trailblazing as Annie Hall or as genuinely beautiful and stirring as Manhattan, Hannah delivers where it counts: the writing is quick, witty and interesting; the story is captivating, but not loaded with the improbability that has plagued much of Allen's recent work; and the acting is brilliant.

In recent years, Allen's films have followed one of two formulas (with the exception of the charming mockumentary, Sweet and Lowdown, and the odd Celebrity): zany comedy based on a silly premise (Hollywood Ending, Curse of the Jade Scorpion, Small Time Crooks) and the ongoing saga of love in Manhattan (the tour de force that is Deconstructing Harry, Anything Else), with some overlap (Melinda and Melinda, the musical Everyone Says I Love You). Leaving aside the former (even Woody Allen should be told no once in a while, though Hollywood Ending was more charming than cockamamie), Allen's take on romance in New York has grown cynical and jaded to the point where his characters are almost farces. Deconstructing's Harry Block, though a delightful novelist, is hard to stomach after 80 minutes, and that seems to be the point.

The heroic Woody Allen character of the 1970s, though physically inadequate and always a nebbish nudnik, was still that: a hero. Twenty years later, he's a pill-popping, down-on-his-luck, multiply-divorced failure (Harry, with his writer's block - not a clever double entendre - hits closest to home). Alvy Singer, of Annie Hall, and Isaac Davis, of Manhattan, were whimsical at their core - never far from the eager Jewish hustler that Mordecai Richler has so well portrayed in his Montreal novels. Annoying and pushy though they might have been, they were defined by being lovable. The late-Allen shmucks are the epitome of unlove.

So what does this have to do with Hannah and Her Sisters? Paul Simon's painfully personal song "Hearts and Bones," which preceded Hannah by a few years, sketches "the arc of a love affair," and so does Hannah. If Simon instructs that, once entwined, hearts and bones "won't come undone," Allen offers a those unlucky in love a second chance. In the end, the hypochondriac ne'er-do-well divorcé and the always-broke, can't get into adulthood, casual cokehead (it was the mid-80s) find pleasantness - and domesticity - together. The final scene, a touching shot of Allen and deserving Oscar-winner Dianne Weist in front of a mirror, is Woody's nicest touch. The arc becomes a circle, and, as Simon would put it in "Thelma," an ode to unexpected love in middle age, "everything else becomes nothing at all."