Emile Zola’s The Kill (La Curée) was the book my reading friends discussed on Wednesday night. The second novel in his 20 novel series about one extended family in the middle of the 19th century, it is set against the great urban changes which took place when Napoléon III and Georges-Eugène Haussmann completely redid the center of Paris. The story is full of sex—we agreed that nothing like it could have been published in North America at the time—but the emotion that really dominates the story is greed. The major male character is a real estate developer who makes fortunes speculating in real estate, and who steals and then loses his wife’s dowry.
More details are coming out about the proposed redevelopment plan for one of the oldest sections of Montreal, Griffintown. Devimco, the motor behind the plan, has options on much land in the old industrial area, but doesn’t own very much. Nevertheless it is trying to get the city to agree to running a trolley line down to the neighborhood as well as many other concessions. Fortunes are going to made here too. The figures involved seem all very modern--the spokesman is a well-spoken, extremely sophisticated man in young middle age--but as Yogi Berra would say, It is déjà vu all over again.
Given the way the stories and situations that Zola write about have their echoes today it is no surprise the novelist is enjoying renewed popularity among Quebec young people: Rollande reported that when she bought her copy, the young man in line next to her told her how much he liked the book. Two bistros have recently opened in the trendier parts of Montreal which take their names from other novels in the series, L’Assommoir and La Bête humaine.
Friday, 25 January 2008
Thursday, 24 January 2008
Fun and Games and the Topography of Winter
This could be the coldest week of the year: after the January thaw we often have the deep freeze. This morning the radio reported temperatures of minus 25 Celsius (about minus 10 F) in the country, and minus 17 C (not quite 0 F) in town. The sun is out, though, and with the snow which fell on Tuesday it promises to be a day of blinding sunshine. Great weather, if you’re dressed properlyLast night one of my book groups met in the neighborhood, and as the five of us from Durocher walked home about 11:30 p.m. we laughed to see a big snow plow parked in front of a souvlaki place. For the night? Or just while the driver took a break?
The answer came in the next block where the snow had been carefully cleared from along the curbs, but a long ridge remained down the middle. It wasn’t interfering with traffic—at that hour there weren’t many cars out—and some how it made the quiet street seem almost country-like. How the topography changes when water vapour freezes as it falls to earth!
As I said, it was night when we passed, and even though the nearly full moon was out, I didn’t have my camera with me to take a picture. So I’m including one from December when the Hasidic boys next door played in the snow and watched the snow removal operations while they waited for their school bus.
P.S. This morning the plow AND the ridge of snow had disappeared.
Tuesday, 22 January 2008
Griffintown Project: A Mistake to Go off the Grid
Mayor Gérald Tremblay’s administration seems poised to make major changes to an old industrial part of the city so a developer can build a combination of housing, commercial buildings and a shopping center.
The neighborhood, Griffintown, was where Irish immigrants settled in the mid-19th century so they could be work on the Lachine canal and the industry that grew up along it. Over the last 20 years it has become a ghost town as industry moved out and housing deteriorated. Plans to build a casino and entertainment complex fell through a couple of years ago, under a barrage of protest from planners and residents.
This time around Tremblay and friends seem keen on seeing something done. They’ve frozen development for two years in the area to help Devimco, the consortium of developers, so they assemble the necessary land. Tremblay also appears to be listening to Devimco’s demands that a trolley or at the very least trolley buses be provided to link with Montreal’s business and commercial center.
But developing the land along the lines Devimco suggests would completely do away with a unique part of Montreal history, Steven Peck argued in Le Devoir on Monday. When Griffintown was laid out in 1804, it adopted the grid pattern which became standard over much of North America, but which was an innovation at the time: New York adopted the grid only in 1811. The advantages of this kind of layout were described by Jane Jacobs in the ground breaking book The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Chief among them is the pedestrian traffic and liveliness it engenders which works toward making a neighborhood an attractive place to live and work.
Peck doesn’t go into detail about this but he does point out that the most successful redevelopment plans in other cities have taken a homegrown element and capitalized on it. To completely eliminate Griffintown’s specialness by building another highrise-big box development that might be found anywhere would be a big mistake, he says.
Could be. This is one to keep an eye on. The developers also recently completed a new Life Style shopping center on the South shore of the St. Lawrence, and I intend to visit it soon. I’ll give a report when I do.
The neighborhood, Griffintown, was where Irish immigrants settled in the mid-19th century so they could be work on the Lachine canal and the industry that grew up along it. Over the last 20 years it has become a ghost town as industry moved out and housing deteriorated. Plans to build a casino and entertainment complex fell through a couple of years ago, under a barrage of protest from planners and residents.
This time around Tremblay and friends seem keen on seeing something done. They’ve frozen development for two years in the area to help Devimco, the consortium of developers, so they assemble the necessary land. Tremblay also appears to be listening to Devimco’s demands that a trolley or at the very least trolley buses be provided to link with Montreal’s business and commercial center.
But developing the land along the lines Devimco suggests would completely do away with a unique part of Montreal history, Steven Peck argued in Le Devoir on Monday. When Griffintown was laid out in 1804, it adopted the grid pattern which became standard over much of North America, but which was an innovation at the time: New York adopted the grid only in 1811. The advantages of this kind of layout were described by Jane Jacobs in the ground breaking book The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Chief among them is the pedestrian traffic and liveliness it engenders which works toward making a neighborhood an attractive place to live and work.
Peck doesn’t go into detail about this but he does point out that the most successful redevelopment plans in other cities have taken a homegrown element and capitalized on it. To completely eliminate Griffintown’s specialness by building another highrise-big box development that might be found anywhere would be a big mistake, he says.
Could be. This is one to keep an eye on. The developers also recently completed a new Life Style shopping center on the South shore of the St. Lawrence, and I intend to visit it soon. I’ll give a report when I do.
The Importance of Being Edited: New Yorker Articles Show Why
Taken together, three recent articles in The New Yorker are the biggest argument in favouring of editors that I’ve come across in some time. Two of them concern writers of great talent who had difficulty in finding their voice—Raymond Carver and Malcolm Lowry. The third, by Adam Gopnik and available on line only as an abstract, talks about the great changes made to accepted masterpieces in a new series of abridged versions.
Raymond Carver had the good fortune to have Gordon Lish edit his work. Lish took quite good stories and pared them down to bone and sinew. How he did it—and the effect it had on Carver—is clearly seen in “track changes” version of “What We Talk about When We Talk about Love” now posted on The New Yorker’s website.
Malcolm Lowry’s most important book Under the Volcano was shaped by his collaboration with his wife, Margerie, we learn in “Day of the Dead” by D. T. Max. Unlike Carver, who quit drinking about the time the quality of his writing began to be recognized, Lowry drank heroic quantities until his death. Margerie, who also drank a great deal, nevertheless helped him refine his voice, construct his story, and find the framework on which to hang his exuberant language. Without her, Max suggests, Lowry could have wallowed forever in a surfeit of words.
The Gopnik article is an appraisal of what is cut from the Orion versions. Not much of the action, it seems, but much of the idiosyncratic meanderings which give depth to the works, and raise them from simple story-telling to something more, he suggests.
If Gordon Lish and Margerie Lowry are excellent examples of the editor who can see genius underneath layers of verbiage, Gopnik warns that it is quite possible to go too far in the other direction.
Writing is among the most solitary of occupations. To do it really well, writers need to have the opinion of others about their work. That is both the good thing and the bad thing about current writing. By throwing rough drafts and casual thoughts to the winds of the Internet, a writer may find kindred spirits who will help him or her along. But because this kind of writing is by definition amateur, no editor is there to guide it, shape it, see what’s really there underneath the dross.
My own experience with editors has been positive. The best, like Marc Côté of Cormorant Books which will bring out my novel The Violets of Usambara in March, see what's wrong, ask questions, and then allow you to find the answers. The writer is ultimately responsible for what is written, but the editor has helped him or her immensely.
Raymond Carver had the good fortune to have Gordon Lish edit his work. Lish took quite good stories and pared them down to bone and sinew. How he did it—and the effect it had on Carver—is clearly seen in “track changes” version of “What We Talk about When We Talk about Love” now posted on The New Yorker’s website.
Malcolm Lowry’s most important book Under the Volcano was shaped by his collaboration with his wife, Margerie, we learn in “Day of the Dead” by D. T. Max. Unlike Carver, who quit drinking about the time the quality of his writing began to be recognized, Lowry drank heroic quantities until his death. Margerie, who also drank a great deal, nevertheless helped him refine his voice, construct his story, and find the framework on which to hang his exuberant language. Without her, Max suggests, Lowry could have wallowed forever in a surfeit of words.
The Gopnik article is an appraisal of what is cut from the Orion versions. Not much of the action, it seems, but much of the idiosyncratic meanderings which give depth to the works, and raise them from simple story-telling to something more, he suggests.
If Gordon Lish and Margerie Lowry are excellent examples of the editor who can see genius underneath layers of verbiage, Gopnik warns that it is quite possible to go too far in the other direction.
Writing is among the most solitary of occupations. To do it really well, writers need to have the opinion of others about their work. That is both the good thing and the bad thing about current writing. By throwing rough drafts and casual thoughts to the winds of the Internet, a writer may find kindred spirits who will help him or her along. But because this kind of writing is by definition amateur, no editor is there to guide it, shape it, see what’s really there underneath the dross.
My own experience with editors has been positive. The best, like Marc Côté of Cormorant Books which will bring out my novel The Violets of Usambara in March, see what's wrong, ask questions, and then allow you to find the answers. The writer is ultimately responsible for what is written, but the editor has helped him or her immensely.
Monday, 21 January 2008
Proposed Fuel Efficiency Standards Are a Step Backward
Even if Quebec and Manitoba go it alone among Canadian provinces and adopt the same fuel efficiency norms that California wants, they’ll still be far behind the benchmarks established by auto manufacturers and the Canadian government 1995. That’s the astounding conclusion to draw from a study of international fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT.)
The study, released last summer, looks at Canada, the United States, South Korea, Japan and Western Europe, Louis-Gilles Francoeur reported in Saturday’s Le Devoir. It shows that automobiles in Canada currently have an average fuel efficiency of 30 miles per US gallon (mpg), compared with an average of 25 mpg in the US and 23 mpg in California. But according to a voluntary agreement worked out by the Paul Martin government and the auto industry, the average is already supposed to drop to 34 mpg by 2010, while the much-acclaimed California norms would only hit 33 mpg in 2016. George W. Bush and Canada's Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon propose hitting that target in 2020. (For details, see "Passenger Vehicle Greenhouse Gas and Fuel Economy Standards: A Global Update " found under the Car and Light Truck Fuel Efficiency category on the ICCT's website.)
The 1995 agreement is supposedly still in force, but nobody is talking about it, certainly not when the current Conservative government wants to set a target of 35 mpg or 6.7 litres per 100 km by 2020.
And to think that in 1974 the dog and I drove to Toronto in a VW hatchback and made 34 mpg! The winds were with us, but talk about being ahead of our time!
The study, released last summer, looks at Canada, the United States, South Korea, Japan and Western Europe, Louis-Gilles Francoeur reported in Saturday’s Le Devoir. It shows that automobiles in Canada currently have an average fuel efficiency of 30 miles per US gallon (mpg), compared with an average of 25 mpg in the US and 23 mpg in California. But according to a voluntary agreement worked out by the Paul Martin government and the auto industry, the average is already supposed to drop to 34 mpg by 2010, while the much-acclaimed California norms would only hit 33 mpg in 2016. George W. Bush and Canada's Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon propose hitting that target in 2020. (For details, see "Passenger Vehicle Greenhouse Gas and Fuel Economy Standards: A Global Update " found under the Car and Light Truck Fuel Efficiency category on the ICCT's website.)
The 1995 agreement is supposedly still in force, but nobody is talking about it, certainly not when the current Conservative government wants to set a target of 35 mpg or 6.7 litres per 100 km by 2020.
And to think that in 1974 the dog and I drove to Toronto in a VW hatchback and made 34 mpg! The winds were with us, but talk about being ahead of our time!
Friday, 18 January 2008
Saturday Photo: Running the Mountain
You can't let winter get you down, and these runners certainly are taking advantage of the sunshine. This carriage road was laid out by Frederick Law Olmsted in the 1870s, and is now used heavily by runners, walkers, skiers and bicyclists. You don't see many of the latter this time of year--but there still are some hardy souls on bikes.
More Horsepower, Less Horse Sense: Why We Need Tough Auto Fuel Efficiency Standards
The front page of Le Devoir features a big picture of the new Tesla, an entirely electric sports car, and a big headline "Always Bigger, Always More Powerful." The story by environmental writer Louis-Gilles Francoeur reports that even though manufacturers have improved the fuel efficiency of their cars, the saving has been lost in jacking up horse power. He quotes a study by two Quebec anti-pollution, energy conservation groups of the fuel efficiency of 1997 car models and those 10 years later. It says, for example, that over the period the Honda Civic increased its horsepower from 106 to 140, a 36 per cent jump, while its fuel consumption got worse, dropping from 31 miles per gallon in town and 39 on the highway to 26 and 34 mpg respectively.
Francoeur's article is very timely. This is car show season--the Tesla is on display at Montreal's Salon de l'auto right now--and Lawrence Cannon, federal transport minister, started talking yesterday about setting the fuel consumption standard for Canada. He wants to peg it at an average 35 miles per gallon, or 6.7 litres per 100 kilometres, by the year 2020. That’s the same as what the Bush government is proposing the US, but much worse than what Arnold Schwarzenegger’s government in California would like.
The premiers of Quebec and Manitoba say they’re in favour of standards more in line with California’s, which call for hitting the 35 miles per gallon point by 2016.
Yes, let’s do that, I say. Let’s also not be led around by our noses by a Conservative government that has a vested interest in keeping oil production going and has been blindly following George W. Bush’s lead.
But at the same time, let’s give some thought to actually using automobiles less. As I work on my next book, The Walkable City: From Haussmann’s Boulevards to Jane Jacobs Streets and Beyond, I’m becoming convinced that for 150 years we have systematically eliminating walking as the everyday means of transportation. To bring it back would require some fundamental changes in the way we live, and what they might be is a topic that I continue to wrestle with. More about that later.
In the meantime, I checked the fuel efficiency ratings on our 2002 Toyota Corolla, and it looks like it rates pretty well: probably about an average of 31 miles per gallon. Of course we don't drive it very much: it's gone 22,000 kilometers in the five and a half years since we bought it. BMW is more our style: bus, Metro and walk.
But maybe I should figure out a relevant measure of walking efficiency. What about something along the lines of: how many chocolate chip cookies per 10 kilometers or miles per pepperoni pizza?
Francoeur's article is very timely. This is car show season--the Tesla is on display at Montreal's Salon de l'auto right now--and Lawrence Cannon, federal transport minister, started talking yesterday about setting the fuel consumption standard for Canada. He wants to peg it at an average 35 miles per gallon, or 6.7 litres per 100 kilometres, by the year 2020. That’s the same as what the Bush government is proposing the US, but much worse than what Arnold Schwarzenegger’s government in California would like.
The premiers of Quebec and Manitoba say they’re in favour of standards more in line with California’s, which call for hitting the 35 miles per gallon point by 2016.
Yes, let’s do that, I say. Let’s also not be led around by our noses by a Conservative government that has a vested interest in keeping oil production going and has been blindly following George W. Bush’s lead.
But at the same time, let’s give some thought to actually using automobiles less. As I work on my next book, The Walkable City: From Haussmann’s Boulevards to Jane Jacobs Streets and Beyond, I’m becoming convinced that for 150 years we have systematically eliminating walking as the everyday means of transportation. To bring it back would require some fundamental changes in the way we live, and what they might be is a topic that I continue to wrestle with. More about that later.
In the meantime, I checked the fuel efficiency ratings on our 2002 Toyota Corolla, and it looks like it rates pretty well: probably about an average of 31 miles per gallon. Of course we don't drive it very much: it's gone 22,000 kilometers in the five and a half years since we bought it. BMW is more our style: bus, Metro and walk.
But maybe I should figure out a relevant measure of walking efficiency. What about something along the lines of: how many chocolate chip cookies per 10 kilometers or miles per pepperoni pizza?
Thursday, 17 January 2008
A Walk on the Safe Side: Get Your Mammograms
Yesterday was a gorgeous, not-too-cold day in Montreal with fresh snow on the ground. I spent a good part of the afternoon walking around in the fine weather, arranging to send a friend's mammograms to France for her where she has moved.
I couldn't help thinking of the walks I took summer before last. Five days a week for five weeks I made my way across Mount Royal to the Montreal General Hospital for radiation after a lumpectomy of suspicious tissue, a ductal carcinoma in situ. The walks through the park were a pleasure, and I'm sure the reason I came through the treatment with absolutely no side effects is due to the big dose of nature I got every day.
Thank goodness that is behind me, but the follow-up to that train of thought is not. Women over 50 should get regular mammograms because they can show up cancer in its very early stages when treatment is extremely effective and nearly trouble-free. Take a walk on the safe side and, if you're a woman of a certain age, call about a mammogram today. If you're a man, makes sure the women in your life do so.
I couldn't help thinking of the walks I took summer before last. Five days a week for five weeks I made my way across Mount Royal to the Montreal General Hospital for radiation after a lumpectomy of suspicious tissue, a ductal carcinoma in situ. The walks through the park were a pleasure, and I'm sure the reason I came through the treatment with absolutely no side effects is due to the big dose of nature I got every day.
Thank goodness that is behind me, but the follow-up to that train of thought is not. Women over 50 should get regular mammograms because they can show up cancer in its very early stages when treatment is extremely effective and nearly trouble-free. Take a walk on the safe side and, if you're a woman of a certain age, call about a mammogram today. If you're a man, makes sure the women in your life do so.
Wednesday, 16 January 2008
Short Stories Like Chocolate: To Be Savoured, One at a Time
Short stories—like most poems—should be read one at a time. Reading more than that dulls the literary palate, and the subtleties of the stories are lost the way the nuances of the best chocolates fade when you eat too many of them at one sitting.
That is why I’ve taken my sweet time to read one of my most appreciated Christmas gifts, The Best American Short Stories of 2007. One a night, the book on the bedside table to be opened only when there is enough time to read a complete story.
This year the collection is guest-edited by Stephen King who has chosen 20 stories from hundreds that he and the series editor Heidi Pitlor found in American and Canadian magazines published between January 2006 and January 2007. There’s an Alice Munro story from The New Yorker among them, but King has picked quirkier ones than usually get the nod. They include at least one that could be classified as science fiction and a couple that are exuberantly weird.
So far my favourite is “Balto” by T.C. Boyle, in which two first person narratives—a father and his pre-teen daughter—battle in a kind of “Dueling Banjos” over what really happened during an accident. But I still have three stories left, and one of the pleasures of a collection of this kind is that you never know what you’ll come upon next…
That is why I’ve taken my sweet time to read one of my most appreciated Christmas gifts, The Best American Short Stories of 2007. One a night, the book on the bedside table to be opened only when there is enough time to read a complete story.
This year the collection is guest-edited by Stephen King who has chosen 20 stories from hundreds that he and the series editor Heidi Pitlor found in American and Canadian magazines published between January 2006 and January 2007. There’s an Alice Munro story from The New Yorker among them, but King has picked quirkier ones than usually get the nod. They include at least one that could be classified as science fiction and a couple that are exuberantly weird.
So far my favourite is “Balto” by T.C. Boyle, in which two first person narratives—a father and his pre-teen daughter—battle in a kind of “Dueling Banjos” over what really happened during an accident. But I still have three stories left, and one of the pleasures of a collection of this kind is that you never know what you’ll come upon next…
Tuesday, 15 January 2008
News from Burundi: Not a Very Happy New Year
Reports late last fall suggested that the long-standing battles in Burundi might be winding down, but that appears not to be happening. Monday IRIN, the UN’s information agency, reported that about 1,400 families-- 8,400 persons in all--have been forced from their homes in Burundi’s northwest province of Bubanza. Fighting between government forces and the rebel Forces Nationales de Libération (FNL) flared again in late December, with clashes on Dec. 28 and January 9.
According to Laurent Kagamba of the local government, the internally displaced persons (IDPs) “need food aid, blankets - the region is very cold - as well as cooking utensils, as all their properties have been looted. Even if it was time for the harvest of beans and maize, they cannot access them.”
Burundi, the non-identical twin to Rwanda in Central Africa’s Great Lake District, has been the scene of conflict since 1993 when trouble between Hutus and Tutsis broke out. Nelson Mandela helped broker a government of reconciliation in 2000, but progress has been slow. According to IRIN, although the FNL signed a ceasefire accord with the government in September 2006, it has not been fully implemented. The FNL walked out of talks over security last summer, and they "have since been accusing the facilitator, South African safety minister Charles Nqakula, of bias."
A personal note: as readers of this blog may remember, I spent some time in Burundi in 2001 as I did research for my novel The Violets of Usambara. On Friday the spring catalogue for the publisher Cormorant Books arrived, announcing the publication this spring of Violets. How sad that Burundi's travails continue!
According to Laurent Kagamba of the local government, the internally displaced persons (IDPs) “need food aid, blankets - the region is very cold - as well as cooking utensils, as all their properties have been looted. Even if it was time for the harvest of beans and maize, they cannot access them.”
Burundi, the non-identical twin to Rwanda in Central Africa’s Great Lake District, has been the scene of conflict since 1993 when trouble between Hutus and Tutsis broke out. Nelson Mandela helped broker a government of reconciliation in 2000, but progress has been slow. According to IRIN, although the FNL signed a ceasefire accord with the government in September 2006, it has not been fully implemented. The FNL walked out of talks over security last summer, and they "have since been accusing the facilitator, South African safety minister Charles Nqakula, of bias."
A personal note: as readers of this blog may remember, I spent some time in Burundi in 2001 as I did research for my novel The Violets of Usambara. On Friday the spring catalogue for the publisher Cormorant Books arrived, announcing the publication this spring of Violets. How sad that Burundi's travails continue!
Monday, 14 January 2008
"It's the Fashion, Stupid!" At Least in Part: The Many Varieties of Muslim Dress
Today a fashion note. Like many people who knew little about Islam until recently, I long held the stereotype of a Muslim woman as someone drably dressed with all her charm hidden. But I’ve learned that’s not true. The first hint came in 2000 when I went to Singapore: not only were the Malay-origin Muslim women there dressed in brilliant colours, but on the way back I encountered a veiled woman from one of the Arab states whose black silk robe had a discreet design, “Gucci.”
Since then I’ve grown accustomed to seeing women in hijab, or Muslim headscarf in Montreal, encountering, for example, several young Muslim mothers at a children’s hospital where I volunteer one afternoon a week.
What I do is rock babies whose parents want to take a break, or talk to them if they need an ear to tell their troubles to. (The fact that I’ve been there and done that—Lukas had meningitis as a baby—is one of the reasons I volunteer, and I suspect it's comforting for the parents of sick kids to learn that our big, smart son who’s decided he wants to be a philosopher was once a really sick baby.)
Some of the women I meet speak neither English nor French, but two weeks ago I spent a couple of hours chatting with a young mother of Lebanese descent who wore her headscarf with jeans and a sweater. The week before that I rocked the baby of a Pakistani woman in salwar kameez, the trouser and tunic outfit worn by women of many religions in South Asia. Last week there were two mothers wearing flowing, beautifully embroidered gowns. Then yesterday the fact that these women care as much about how they look as any other woman came home when I saw a young woman waiting in line at a big supermarket wearing a gorgeous green and yellow robe with her scarf pulled across her face.
Intrigued, I went looking last night on the net see what kind of fashion advice they might be listening to. I came across a very interesting article in Slate about attempts by Nordstrom to market to Muslim women, as well as a number of great YouTube videos explaining how to wrap a hijab (including one from a pretty young redhead from Iowa who calls herself the non-Muslim hijabi) and showing the latest in modest, Muslim fashion.
Before you protest that it is degrading to women to insist they cover their hair and bust, let me remind you that 50 years ago a woman could not enter a Roman Catholic church with her head uncovered, her arms bare or wearing trousers. Protestants were a little more flexible then, but my mother reared me to wear a hat, gloves, stockings and high heels to go shopping downtown, and to all major social occasions.
All that has changed, of course. But one thing remains: at least part of dress norms are fashion, and don’t you forget it.
Since then I’ve grown accustomed to seeing women in hijab, or Muslim headscarf in Montreal, encountering, for example, several young Muslim mothers at a children’s hospital where I volunteer one afternoon a week.
What I do is rock babies whose parents want to take a break, or talk to them if they need an ear to tell their troubles to. (The fact that I’ve been there and done that—Lukas had meningitis as a baby—is one of the reasons I volunteer, and I suspect it's comforting for the parents of sick kids to learn that our big, smart son who’s decided he wants to be a philosopher was once a really sick baby.)
Some of the women I meet speak neither English nor French, but two weeks ago I spent a couple of hours chatting with a young mother of Lebanese descent who wore her headscarf with jeans and a sweater. The week before that I rocked the baby of a Pakistani woman in salwar kameez, the trouser and tunic outfit worn by women of many religions in South Asia. Last week there were two mothers wearing flowing, beautifully embroidered gowns. Then yesterday the fact that these women care as much about how they look as any other woman came home when I saw a young woman waiting in line at a big supermarket wearing a gorgeous green and yellow robe with her scarf pulled across her face.
Intrigued, I went looking last night on the net see what kind of fashion advice they might be listening to. I came across a very interesting article in Slate about attempts by Nordstrom to market to Muslim women, as well as a number of great YouTube videos explaining how to wrap a hijab (including one from a pretty young redhead from Iowa who calls herself the non-Muslim hijabi) and showing the latest in modest, Muslim fashion.
Before you protest that it is degrading to women to insist they cover their hair and bust, let me remind you that 50 years ago a woman could not enter a Roman Catholic church with her head uncovered, her arms bare or wearing trousers. Protestants were a little more flexible then, but my mother reared me to wear a hat, gloves, stockings and high heels to go shopping downtown, and to all major social occasions.
All that has changed, of course. But one thing remains: at least part of dress norms are fashion, and don’t you forget it.
Friday, 11 January 2008
Saturday Photo: The People Who Are Going to Buy Tata's New Car
Well, I can't say if this young couple will have the wherewithal or the desire to buy one of Indian car manufacturer's car for the masses, the Nano, which was unveiled by industrial giant Tata this week. But I do know for sure that they are part of the Indian middle class which is delighting in its increasing purchasing power.I took their picture two years ago when I was in Kochi on the southwest coast of the subcontinent. They were at a horticultural show along with several thousand others, enjoying an afternoon outing. I took an autorickshaw to the show, letting the driver wend his way through the heavy traffic of motorbikes, light trucks, other autorickshaws and white Indian-made sedans. Those who wonder what the introduction of a cheap passenger car will do to the already intense Indian traffic and consequent greenhouse gas emissions have legitimate concerns, although Tata says the Nano will be less polluting than motorcycles.
Without a doubt, the Nano and other cheap cars being developed will be safer than motorcycles, too. I was astounded to see families on scooters: Dad driving with an older child sitting in front of him on the cross bar while Mom balanced in back, holding a baby in one arm, while she gripped the seat with her free hand. How they did it is beyond me, because the one motorbike ride I had in Kochi traffic left me with muscle cramps in my arms from hanging on to the driver for dear life.
For more about Kochi, see my post on Urbanphoto. Or check out the chapter on it in Green City: People, Nature, and Urban Places.
Those Funny Light Bulbs Really Are Disagreeable, the New York Times Finds
Stock up on incandescent light bulbs, because it still is hard to find an energy efficient light bulb that is nice to have around. That seems to be the message underlying a story in The New York Times this week. The NYT’s House and Home staff rated 21 different kinds of bulbs, including 14 compact fluorescents, as governments proceed toward mandatory requirements that bulbs reduce energy consumption by 20-25 per cent. Only 10 per cent of the energy used by an incandescent light bulb is emitted as light. The rest is heat, as anyone who has hurt fingers when trying to unscrew a suddenly burnt-out bulb can tell you. What is being proposed to replace incandescents, though, leaves a great deal to be desired.
A couple of the new bulbs tested didn’t rate too badly, but the light from most seemed to change the colour of everything it illuminated, from skin tones to the walls of rooms. Their light was also judged to look “unnatural.” That’s probably because the spectrum of the light they emit is considerably different from that of incandescent bulbs—and of sun or fire light which is the light we humans evolved in.
The story says that manufacturers are working toward making energy efficient bulbs with more pleasing light, so perhaps help is on the way. In the meantime, at our house we intend to keep using the ordinary bulbs. Certainly there are other ways to keep down consumption of electricity. I didn’t see many people railing about the amount used on Christmas lights, for example.
For Lee's birthday he got an old suitcase full of 100 watt incandescent bulbs that I found--after some searching--at a local hardware store. The others in the family can expect similar presents in the future from me as the count-down to contraband-status proceeds. I don't call it hoarding, I call it wise shopping.
A couple of the new bulbs tested didn’t rate too badly, but the light from most seemed to change the colour of everything it illuminated, from skin tones to the walls of rooms. Their light was also judged to look “unnatural.” That’s probably because the spectrum of the light they emit is considerably different from that of incandescent bulbs—and of sun or fire light which is the light we humans evolved in.
The story says that manufacturers are working toward making energy efficient bulbs with more pleasing light, so perhaps help is on the way. In the meantime, at our house we intend to keep using the ordinary bulbs. Certainly there are other ways to keep down consumption of electricity. I didn’t see many people railing about the amount used on Christmas lights, for example.
For Lee's birthday he got an old suitcase full of 100 watt incandescent bulbs that I found--after some searching--at a local hardware store. The others in the family can expect similar presents in the future from me as the count-down to contraband-status proceeds. I don't call it hoarding, I call it wise shopping.
Thursday, 10 January 2008
Carbon Tax and January Thaw: The Ups and Downs of Climate Change
It’s fitting that the temperature hit record highs this week across Canada, as an advisory panel to the federal government recommended the speedy introduction of a carbon tax. Stephen Harper’s Conservative government doesn’t like the idea much. They contend that regulations will be sufficient to get us to cut down on green house gas emissions. That’s possibly true, but first of all you have to formulate regulations, and that’s exactly what the Conservatives aren’t doing. The Quebec government put in place a carbon tax in October, by the way, and complaints so far have been few.
As our neighbor McGill University meteorologist Jacques Derome told Le Devoir last month, wildly changeable weather seems to be a hallmark of all the models for climate change. Certainly that is what we have this year. Montreal got nearly as much snow in December as we usually receive all winter, but now it is almost all gone. Last Thursday when Lukas and Sophie went cross country skiing in the Laurentians, in places the snow was deeper than five foot Sophie is tall. There probably is more snow left there now than there is in town, but they were lucky their trip was planned for last week, not this.
The only up side to the current warm spell that I can see is that perhaps I’ll be able to rake up the last of the leaves in back before spring. I’d been waiting for them all to fall, but the snow arrived so early and so abundantly that the job didn’t get done. Maybe if the leaves are raked up before the maples leaf out, we won't have so much tar spot on the leaves next August: apparently the spores that cause the disease overwinter in fallen leaves and infest the tree in spring.
As our neighbor McGill University meteorologist Jacques Derome told Le Devoir last month, wildly changeable weather seems to be a hallmark of all the models for climate change. Certainly that is what we have this year. Montreal got nearly as much snow in December as we usually receive all winter, but now it is almost all gone. Last Thursday when Lukas and Sophie went cross country skiing in the Laurentians, in places the snow was deeper than five foot Sophie is tall. There probably is more snow left there now than there is in town, but they were lucky their trip was planned for last week, not this.
The only up side to the current warm spell that I can see is that perhaps I’ll be able to rake up the last of the leaves in back before spring. I’d been waiting for them all to fall, but the snow arrived so early and so abundantly that the job didn’t get done. Maybe if the leaves are raked up before the maples leaf out, we won't have so much tar spot on the leaves next August: apparently the spores that cause the disease overwinter in fallen leaves and infest the tree in spring.
Wednesday, 9 January 2008
"It's the Economy, Stupid!" or the US Sixteen Years Later: Less Racist Than in 1992, But Just as Troubled
So Obama won Iowa but Clinton wins New Hampshire? The big question now is, of course, who will best combat whatever Republican gets the nod.
In his The Conscience of a Liberal, Paul Krugman has some interesting things to say about how changing attitudes and demographics could make a big difference in the chances of electing a left of center president. Americans are less racist, he asserts. He also argues that the increasing numbers of Hispanic and Asian voters, combined with the African-American vote could make a “movement conservative” attempt to play the race or fear card much less effective than it has been for the last 30 years. But, as he said in his New York Times column Monday, it’s going to be a tough fight.
Reading between the lines, it appears to me that Krugman thinks Clinton would be better at that than Obama with his hopeful albeit rather undetailed message.
But the fact that Obama won in the rural areas of New Hampshire suggests that Krugman is right in maintaining the nation is becoming less racist. I sure would like to think so.
It’s also telling that New Hampshire’s urban areas went for Clinton. Here it may well be “it’s the economy, stupid” just as it was when Bill Clinton came back to win the state’s primary in 1992.
Memo to political junkies: get "The War Room"--about James Carville and Bill's brilliant campaign--from the video store this weekend.
In his The Conscience of a Liberal, Paul Krugman has some interesting things to say about how changing attitudes and demographics could make a big difference in the chances of electing a left of center president. Americans are less racist, he asserts. He also argues that the increasing numbers of Hispanic and Asian voters, combined with the African-American vote could make a “movement conservative” attempt to play the race or fear card much less effective than it has been for the last 30 years. But, as he said in his New York Times column Monday, it’s going to be a tough fight.
Reading between the lines, it appears to me that Krugman thinks Clinton would be better at that than Obama with his hopeful albeit rather undetailed message.
But the fact that Obama won in the rural areas of New Hampshire suggests that Krugman is right in maintaining the nation is becoming less racist. I sure would like to think so.
It’s also telling that New Hampshire’s urban areas went for Clinton. Here it may well be “it’s the economy, stupid” just as it was when Bill Clinton came back to win the state’s primary in 1992.
Memo to political junkies: get "The War Room"--about James Carville and Bill's brilliant campaign--from the video store this weekend.
Tuesday, 8 January 2008
When Speaking the Same Language Matters: Tanzania, Kenya and Kiswahili
It is always risky to make comments about societies which you have only observed briefly, but listening and reading news reports about post-election trouble in Kenya, I find myself returning again and again to the short time I spent in East Africa in 2001.
I went to research a novel The Violets of Usambara, which will finally—after nearly 10 years of work—be published this spring. Before I left I did not bother to learn any Kiswahili: half the time would be spent in the former Belgian colony of Burundi and I speak good French, and I thought I’d find plenty of people who spoke English in the former British colonies of Tanzania and Kenya where I went for the second part of the trip. That was a mistake. French served me well in Burundi, but outside Dar es Salaam, only the more educated Tanzanians spoke English, making communication a little difficult.
At independence Tanzania named Kiswahili the “national” language as a way to unify a new country where about 100 tribal languages were spoken. Now primary education in state schools is in Kiswahili, with English instruction reserved for secondary schools. Nearly all signs were in Kiswahili as well as English when I was there, and while there were daily newspapers in Kiswahili for sale in every little town, I couldn’t find the English paper outside Dar.
Kenya made different choices, which were apparent as soon as we crossed the border on the road from Arusha to Nairobi. Signs were in English with Kiswahili added only on some “keep out” ones, and while I could find two English dailies in Nairobi, there seemed to be far fewer Kiswahili papers as well as fewer people reading newspapers on buses and street corners too.
So when there was talk of Rwanda-like ethnic conflict last week in Kenya, I began to wonder if part of the problem was due to lack of success in making one nation out of many tribal groups by building on one language.
I don’t know. Certainly people who speak the same language don’t always get along. In Rwanda and Burundi Hutus and Tutsis speak the same languages, but that hasn’t stopped them from hating and killing each other. Yet all other things being equal, it is easier to communicate, to discuss, and to negotiate if the players--at all levels of society--can communicate in a language that everyone knows well.
The importance of Kiswahili—a sophisticated language with written poetry going back 800 or so years—in Eastern and Central Africa was underscored before I left Tanzania. When I spent a day at the UN genocide trials in Arusha, I passed one of the recesses talking to a Rwandan reporter fluent in French. About half way through our conversation a UN library employee from Tanzania’s coast with whom I’d been speaking in English earlier came up. I introduced the two men and started to translate back and forth from French to English. But then they realized that they both spoke Kiswahili and the conversation took off, with them translating occasionally for me so I could understand what they were saying.
I never picked up more than a few words of Kiswahili: hapana, no; sawa, okay; karibu, welcome; mzungu, white person; duka, shop; choo, WC, and, of course, asante sana, thank you very much.
I went to research a novel The Violets of Usambara, which will finally—after nearly 10 years of work—be published this spring. Before I left I did not bother to learn any Kiswahili: half the time would be spent in the former Belgian colony of Burundi and I speak good French, and I thought I’d find plenty of people who spoke English in the former British colonies of Tanzania and Kenya where I went for the second part of the trip. That was a mistake. French served me well in Burundi, but outside Dar es Salaam, only the more educated Tanzanians spoke English, making communication a little difficult.
At independence Tanzania named Kiswahili the “national” language as a way to unify a new country where about 100 tribal languages were spoken. Now primary education in state schools is in Kiswahili, with English instruction reserved for secondary schools. Nearly all signs were in Kiswahili as well as English when I was there, and while there were daily newspapers in Kiswahili for sale in every little town, I couldn’t find the English paper outside Dar.
Kenya made different choices, which were apparent as soon as we crossed the border on the road from Arusha to Nairobi. Signs were in English with Kiswahili added only on some “keep out” ones, and while I could find two English dailies in Nairobi, there seemed to be far fewer Kiswahili papers as well as fewer people reading newspapers on buses and street corners too.
So when there was talk of Rwanda-like ethnic conflict last week in Kenya, I began to wonder if part of the problem was due to lack of success in making one nation out of many tribal groups by building on one language.
I don’t know. Certainly people who speak the same language don’t always get along. In Rwanda and Burundi Hutus and Tutsis speak the same languages, but that hasn’t stopped them from hating and killing each other. Yet all other things being equal, it is easier to communicate, to discuss, and to negotiate if the players--at all levels of society--can communicate in a language that everyone knows well.
The importance of Kiswahili—a sophisticated language with written poetry going back 800 or so years—in Eastern and Central Africa was underscored before I left Tanzania. When I spent a day at the UN genocide trials in Arusha, I passed one of the recesses talking to a Rwandan reporter fluent in French. About half way through our conversation a UN library employee from Tanzania’s coast with whom I’d been speaking in English earlier came up. I introduced the two men and started to translate back and forth from French to English. But then they realized that they both spoke Kiswahili and the conversation took off, with them translating occasionally for me so I could understand what they were saying.
I never picked up more than a few words of Kiswahili: hapana, no; sawa, okay; karibu, welcome; mzungu, white person; duka, shop; choo, WC, and, of course, asante sana, thank you very much.
Sunday, 6 January 2008
What if the Three Wise Men Were Three Wise Women: Notes on the End of a Fine Holiday Season
The holiday is really over: Sunday was Armenian Christmas, and today the Orthodox churches celebrate, while part of the Western world calls January 6 Epiphany, when the Three Wise Men brought their gifts to the baby Jesus. Sophie goes back to teaching today, Lee had to show up last Thursday, and Lukas, having handed in his thesis, will get ready for whatever comes next.
We topped the holiday off with a great dinner Saturday cooked by Elin’s significant other Emmanuel, whose brother, sister-in-law and baby niece are visiting from Paris. Choucroute—the best sauerkraut and sausages I’ve ever eaten—were on the menu, which turns out to be the traditional dish for New Year’s in Bénédicte’s family in Belgium. It was a very nice combination of old and new customs.
But before the festivities are over, have a laugh, courtesy of of my friend Élisabeth Humbolt-Lapointe (my translation.)
What would have happened if the Three Kings had been women?
They would have asked for directions, and arrived on time, and been able to help with the birth, and would have cleaned the stable, and would have made a fondue, and would have brought some useful presents.
What would they have said after they left?
Mary’s sandals didn’t go with her dress…
The baby didn’t look like Joseph…
I can’t get over the way they keep animals in the house..
It looks like Joseph is out of work….
And...
Virgin? My eye!
We topped the holiday off with a great dinner Saturday cooked by Elin’s significant other Emmanuel, whose brother, sister-in-law and baby niece are visiting from Paris. Choucroute—the best sauerkraut and sausages I’ve ever eaten—were on the menu, which turns out to be the traditional dish for New Year’s in Bénédicte’s family in Belgium. It was a very nice combination of old and new customs.
But before the festivities are over, have a laugh, courtesy of of my friend Élisabeth Humbolt-Lapointe (my translation.)
What would have happened if the Three Kings had been women?
They would have asked for directions, and arrived on time, and been able to help with the birth, and would have cleaned the stable, and would have made a fondue, and would have brought some useful presents.
What would they have said after they left?
Mary’s sandals didn’t go with her dress…
The baby didn’t look like Joseph…
I can’t get over the way they keep animals in the house..
It looks like Joseph is out of work….
And...
Virgin? My eye!
Friday, 4 January 2008
Saturday Photo: 7 a.m., Sunday, January, Toronto
Well, actually the picture was taken about a year ago--there is more snow in Toronto this January, I gather. But it was 7 a.m. on a Sunday and I'd gone out for a walk early: I was in town for some meetings that weekend, and the thought of sitting several hours more in a hotel conference room was pretty depressing.There weren't many people out, and no one else skating on the rink at Nathan Phillips Square. The man went round and round, not doing anything particularly spectacular but obviously enjoying having the ice to himself.
I came across my skates in the back of the closet a couple of weeks ago when I was looking for an extra knitted cap. Perhaps I should get them out and try out the ice at our local outdoor rinks which have been in operation since mid-December.
From "Beginners" to the Accomplished: Gordon Lish Edits Raymond Carver
If anyone ever doubted the importance of editors, The New Yorker’s on-line publication of Raymond Carver’s story “What We Talk about When We Talk about Love,” complete with Gordon Lish’s edits, will lay those doubts to rest.
Carver’s story, originally called “Beginners,” had whole pages cut from it by Lish. It wasn’t a bad story—that’s clear from the original—but the edgy, pared-down writing and enigmatic tone that made Carver so admired weren’t there. Now Carver’s widow—he died nearly 20 years ago—wants to publish the original version of it and other Carver stories in their pre-Lish form, to show just what her husband was aiming for.
Doing so would do more than fuel a controversy over the relation between Carver and Lish. It underlines just how much a careful, outside eye can see in someone else’s writing. As an accompanying article in The New Yorker points out, what Lish did is not that much different from the edit Ezra Pound gave to T.S. Eliot’s landmark poem “The Waste Land” or what Maxwell Perkins did when he cut 65,000 words from Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward, Angel.
This kind of editing is a thing of the past. Publishing houses today are unlikely to allow editors the time to seek out and work carefully with writers of promise the way Lish did with Carver. If a text isn't already formed and polished it is unlikely an editor or agent will read past the first couple of paragraphs. This--combined with the way the blogosphere and e-publishing tempt many writers to rush anything to the Web or print-out--means that careful editing is now as rare and quaint as an Underwood typewriter.
The New Yorker, strangely, does not say who wrote the interesting comments on the exchange of letters between Carver and Lish. Is this another evidence of the devaluing of the editor? If so, too bad.
Carver’s story, originally called “Beginners,” had whole pages cut from it by Lish. It wasn’t a bad story—that’s clear from the original—but the edgy, pared-down writing and enigmatic tone that made Carver so admired weren’t there. Now Carver’s widow—he died nearly 20 years ago—wants to publish the original version of it and other Carver stories in their pre-Lish form, to show just what her husband was aiming for.
Doing so would do more than fuel a controversy over the relation between Carver and Lish. It underlines just how much a careful, outside eye can see in someone else’s writing. As an accompanying article in The New Yorker points out, what Lish did is not that much different from the edit Ezra Pound gave to T.S. Eliot’s landmark poem “The Waste Land” or what Maxwell Perkins did when he cut 65,000 words from Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward, Angel.
This kind of editing is a thing of the past. Publishing houses today are unlikely to allow editors the time to seek out and work carefully with writers of promise the way Lish did with Carver. If a text isn't already formed and polished it is unlikely an editor or agent will read past the first couple of paragraphs. This--combined with the way the blogosphere and e-publishing tempt many writers to rush anything to the Web or print-out--means that careful editing is now as rare and quaint as an Underwood typewriter.
The New Yorker, strangely, does not say who wrote the interesting comments on the exchange of letters between Carver and Lish. Is this another evidence of the devaluing of the editor? If so, too bad.
Thursday, 3 January 2008
A New Year’s Resolution for Stephen Harper: Read to His Kids
Our Prime Minister has a reputation for being a good family man, so it’s not surprising that the books Yann Martel sent him December 24 are good ones to read to children. Martel has been giving books to Harper every two weeks since last spring, as a part of a campaign to encourage the PM to find some "tranquility" at the end of the day by reading.
The latest, holiday shipment is the 19th in the series. So far Martel has received one acknowledgement—for the first book, The Death of Ivan Illytch by Leo Tolstoy.
The books this time around--“three books to make you and your family dream”--are The Brothers Lionheart, by Astrid Lindgren ; Imagine A Day, by Sarah L. Thomson and Rob Gonsalves; and The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, by Chris Van Allsburg. In the cover letter Martel offers a little meditation about the importance of religious freedom in the Canadian Charter of Rights, congratulates Harper for being discreet in his Christian faith, and ends by speaking of the joy that is expressed in the birth of a baby at Christmas.
Martel’s holiday choices are quite a switch from his last offering: Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. Like all three of the Christmas books, Kafka's grim little fable involves a great leap of imagination, but the magic in it is dark and troubling. “A sort of cautionary tale,” Martel writes in the letter accompanying that gift.
No, Metamorphosis is not a book to read to the kids, but perhaps the Christmas parcel will make it through to the Harper family. Martel gets full marks for his persistence and the care with which he chooses his gifts.
The latest, holiday shipment is the 19th in the series. So far Martel has received one acknowledgement—for the first book, The Death of Ivan Illytch by Leo Tolstoy.
The books this time around--“three books to make you and your family dream”--are The Brothers Lionheart, by Astrid Lindgren ; Imagine A Day, by Sarah L. Thomson and Rob Gonsalves; and The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, by Chris Van Allsburg. In the cover letter Martel offers a little meditation about the importance of religious freedom in the Canadian Charter of Rights, congratulates Harper for being discreet in his Christian faith, and ends by speaking of the joy that is expressed in the birth of a baby at Christmas.
Martel’s holiday choices are quite a switch from his last offering: Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. Like all three of the Christmas books, Kafka's grim little fable involves a great leap of imagination, but the magic in it is dark and troubling. “A sort of cautionary tale,” Martel writes in the letter accompanying that gift.
No, Metamorphosis is not a book to read to the kids, but perhaps the Christmas parcel will make it through to the Harper family. Martel gets full marks for his persistence and the care with which he chooses his gifts.
Wednesday, 2 January 2008
New Year's Resolution 2: Novels by Lawrence Hill and Mary Novik
Two more books on the 2008 Must-Read list: Mary Novik’s Conceit and Lawrence Hill’s The Book of Negroes. called Someone Knows My Name in the U.S.
Two of the more interesting things I do is review book for Quill and Quire and lead book discussions at Montreal-area libraries. Both give me the occasion to read many good books and to reflect on their meaning and the skill with which their authors tell the stories. This year two novels stand out from the 35 or so I read for work: The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill and Conceit by Mary Novik. Both Canadian writers have unique stories to tell. As it happens both, are historically based, but they differ greatly in style and subject.
Lawrence Hill has Aminiata Diallo or Meena Dee tell the epoch story of a woman captured into slavery in the mid-18th century and then transported to North America, back to Africa and finally to England. It is an enormous canvas—at one point Meena thinks about what a map of her travels would look like-0-but it also is an intimate story of a strong woman’s courage, intelligence an resolve.
Mary Novik’s story begins a hundred years before when John Donne’s daughter rescues his effigy from St. Paul’s Cathedral during the Great Fire of 1666. Where Hill’s narrative jumps around in time, but is generally straight forward, Novik’s his lyrical and filled with resonances too Donne’s poetry and scenes from period refracted by the lens of brilliant woman’s passion.
Both books were long listed for the Scotiabank Giller prize, but so far neither has won a big prize. A shame. They both deserve large audiences.
Two of the more interesting things I do is review book for Quill and Quire and lead book discussions at Montreal-area libraries. Both give me the occasion to read many good books and to reflect on their meaning and the skill with which their authors tell the stories. This year two novels stand out from the 35 or so I read for work: The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill and Conceit by Mary Novik. Both Canadian writers have unique stories to tell. As it happens both, are historically based, but they differ greatly in style and subject.
Lawrence Hill has Aminiata Diallo or Meena Dee tell the epoch story of a woman captured into slavery in the mid-18th century and then transported to North America, back to Africa and finally to England. It is an enormous canvas—at one point Meena thinks about what a map of her travels would look like-0-but it also is an intimate story of a strong woman’s courage, intelligence an resolve.
Mary Novik’s story begins a hundred years before when John Donne’s daughter rescues his effigy from St. Paul’s Cathedral during the Great Fire of 1666. Where Hill’s narrative jumps around in time, but is generally straight forward, Novik’s his lyrical and filled with resonances too Donne’s poetry and scenes from period refracted by the lens of brilliant woman’s passion.
Both books were long listed for the Scotiabank Giller prize, but so far neither has won a big prize. A shame. They both deserve large audiences.
Tuesday, 1 January 2008
New Year's Resolution: Books by Paul Krugman and Chantal Hébert That You Must Read
Two books you have to read in 2008, whatever other resolutions you might make: The Conscience of a Liberal by Princeton economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, and French Kiss: Stephen Harper’s Blind Date with Quebec by Chantal Hébert, columnist for The Toronto Star, Le Devoir, CBC and Radio Canada. The first analyses what has gone wrong in the United States over the last 30 years, with the ascendancy of movement conservatism. The second takes a look at the complicated relations between the Rest of Canada and Quebec, and between what I have long thought of as "Canadian values" and the spin Harper’s brand of conservatism would like to bring about here.
I read the Hébert book last spring shortly after it came out, and was impressed by her clear-eyed view of ideology and belief in this country. In particular, I was fascinated by her suggestion that Alberta is squandering a tremendous chance to improve the world by passing back its petroleum windfall to corporations, not investing in its society. What, she asks, would happen if Alberta used Quebec’s strategies to support culture and science instead? Quebec has done pretty well in developing research and cultural industries with much more limited resources (think Cirque du Soleil, Bombardier, computer animation and SNC-Lavalin.) Alberta could do much better if it wanted. But it won’t because that’s against the conservative ideological grain.
The Krugman book examines how that same sort of belief system has destroyed the American middle class since Ronald Reagan’s time, creating a country where income distribution is more inequitable now than at any time since the Gilded Age of the early 19th century. Race has been the way that a large proportion of white Americans have been distracted from what has been going on, he argues quite convincingly. He ends by saying that perhaps movement conservatism's power will be overturned in the next few years, in large part because Americans are now less racist, and because the truly bad news about what has happened to the US is finally sinking in. Instituting a system of universal health insurance would be the best way to turn things around, he says, adding that he is encouraged by the way all the Democratic presidential candidates have rather detailed ideas about how to do this.
Both books are written engagingly: I devoured the Krugman one on Boxing Day, while the Hébert book filled a couple of quiet spring evenings. The questions they pose and the actions they suggest to people who care about the way their countries work, however, may lead to some sleeplessness—and, hopefully, political action in the days ahead.
I read the Hébert book last spring shortly after it came out, and was impressed by her clear-eyed view of ideology and belief in this country. In particular, I was fascinated by her suggestion that Alberta is squandering a tremendous chance to improve the world by passing back its petroleum windfall to corporations, not investing in its society. What, she asks, would happen if Alberta used Quebec’s strategies to support culture and science instead? Quebec has done pretty well in developing research and cultural industries with much more limited resources (think Cirque du Soleil, Bombardier, computer animation and SNC-Lavalin.) Alberta could do much better if it wanted. But it won’t because that’s against the conservative ideological grain.
The Krugman book examines how that same sort of belief system has destroyed the American middle class since Ronald Reagan’s time, creating a country where income distribution is more inequitable now than at any time since the Gilded Age of the early 19th century. Race has been the way that a large proportion of white Americans have been distracted from what has been going on, he argues quite convincingly. He ends by saying that perhaps movement conservatism's power will be overturned in the next few years, in large part because Americans are now less racist, and because the truly bad news about what has happened to the US is finally sinking in. Instituting a system of universal health insurance would be the best way to turn things around, he says, adding that he is encouraged by the way all the Democratic presidential candidates have rather detailed ideas about how to do this.
Both books are written engagingly: I devoured the Krugman one on Boxing Day, while the Hébert book filled a couple of quiet spring evenings. The questions they pose and the actions they suggest to people who care about the way their countries work, however, may lead to some sleeplessness—and, hopefully, political action in the days ahead.
Sunday, 30 December 2007
A Good Way to End 2007: Another Tourtière Recipe
Here’s another recipe for tourtiére which might be good for New Year’s Eve. It is much easier than the Lac Saint-Jean style tourtière, but it is still good.
1. Enough pie dough for a two crust pie
(A good recipe is:
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
½ cup canola or other mild oil
¼ cup water
Mix together and roll out between sheets of waxed paper to make top and bottom crusts for an 8 or 9 inch pie
2. Filling
.75 kilo ground pork
1 large chopped onion
¾ cup water
Herbs to taste—2 tsp sage or rosemary or a combination, a clove of garlic chopped, 1 tsp salt, pepper
Boil pork, onion and water with herbs until the pork is cooked and crumbly.
Let stand so that any excess fat can be skimmed off
Add about ¾ cup of bread or other crumbs—enough to soak up the moisture in the meat mixture.
Put into pastry shell, cover with remaining pastry, Bake at 400 F for about 30 minutes. Serve hot with green tomato relish (chow-chow)
Recipe clipped from The Gazette years ago and modified after suggestions from friends and trial and error.
1. Enough pie dough for a two crust pie
(A good recipe is:
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
½ cup canola or other mild oil
¼ cup water
Mix together and roll out between sheets of waxed paper to make top and bottom crusts for an 8 or 9 inch pie
2. Filling
.75 kilo ground pork
1 large chopped onion
¾ cup water
Herbs to taste—2 tsp sage or rosemary or a combination, a clove of garlic chopped, 1 tsp salt, pepper
Boil pork, onion and water with herbs until the pork is cooked and crumbly.
Let stand so that any excess fat can be skimmed off
Add about ¾ cup of bread or other crumbs—enough to soak up the moisture in the meat mixture.
Put into pastry shell, cover with remaining pastry, Bake at 400 F for about 30 minutes. Serve hot with green tomato relish (chow-chow)
Recipe clipped from The Gazette years ago and modified after suggestions from friends and trial and error.
Friday, 28 December 2007
Saturday Photo: Winter Wonderland
The forecast is for more snow, but actually it hasn't been bad this week. The temperatures hovered slightly under freezing, so walking has been a pleasure, now that the worst of the snow left by the two storms early in December has been cleaned up. The city of Montreal now estimates the cost at $20 million, or a tenth of the snow clearing budget for the year.
But it is undeniably lovely, even cozy, to have snow up to the windowsills if you can stay comfortably inside, as our neighbors across the street did until the last storm was over. Why go out when you don't have to?
Getting the Most from the Sun's Energy: New Ways, and a Warning about Taking Vitamin D
Still more snow in the forecast, but it’s clear that the days are already getting longer. Time to think of other things, like the energy reaching the earth from our friendly neighborhood star.
With the exception of nuclear and geothermal power, every bit of energy expended on earth ultimately comes from the Sun. When we burn coal and petroleum, we are simply using that energy laid down in fossilized plants millions of years ago. The trick for our future will be to find ways to capture the sun’s energy immediately or to store it for further use.
Some notes from the front:
The sun beating down on many ponds last summer created ideal conditions for blue green algae blooms, but some researchers think the fast-growing organisms show promise as commercially-viable precursors to fuels, the Associated Press reports in The Globe and Mail.
Wind is basically just air moving from areas of one temperature to another as the sun heats the earth. The New York Times’s Home and Garden section reports on homeowners in more or less urban areas who are installing wind turbines on the their property to generate electricity, sometime to the annoyance of their neighbors.
European countries and Japan are already far along the path toward replacing diesel made from petroleum to biodiesel made from renewable resources like canola (also called rapeseed.) The Globe and Mail reports that a Japanese company has just bought a large interest in a canola seed crushing plant in Saskatchewan. On the other, John Miller in The Wall Street Journal writes that several European countries have a glut of biodiesel from canola at the moment. He notes that the incentives to use the oil seed for fuel has driven up the price, just as the use of corn to make ethanol in the US has sent corn prices up.
Some promising ideas, but we’re not there yet, are we? Conservation has to be part of the equation.
And by the way, don’t forget to take your Vitamin D these short days, particularly if your skin is dark. There just isn't enough sunlight in northern latitudes for your body to produce enough of this essential substance.
With the exception of nuclear and geothermal power, every bit of energy expended on earth ultimately comes from the Sun. When we burn coal and petroleum, we are simply using that energy laid down in fossilized plants millions of years ago. The trick for our future will be to find ways to capture the sun’s energy immediately or to store it for further use.
Some notes from the front:
The sun beating down on many ponds last summer created ideal conditions for blue green algae blooms, but some researchers think the fast-growing organisms show promise as commercially-viable precursors to fuels, the Associated Press reports in The Globe and Mail.
Wind is basically just air moving from areas of one temperature to another as the sun heats the earth. The New York Times’s Home and Garden section reports on homeowners in more or less urban areas who are installing wind turbines on the their property to generate electricity, sometime to the annoyance of their neighbors.
European countries and Japan are already far along the path toward replacing diesel made from petroleum to biodiesel made from renewable resources like canola (also called rapeseed.) The Globe and Mail reports that a Japanese company has just bought a large interest in a canola seed crushing plant in Saskatchewan. On the other, John Miller in The Wall Street Journal writes that several European countries have a glut of biodiesel from canola at the moment. He notes that the incentives to use the oil seed for fuel has driven up the price, just as the use of corn to make ethanol in the US has sent corn prices up.
Some promising ideas, but we’re not there yet, are we? Conservation has to be part of the equation.
And by the way, don’t forget to take your Vitamin D these short days, particularly if your skin is dark. There just isn't enough sunlight in northern latitudes for your body to produce enough of this essential substance.
Thursday, 27 December 2007
Tourtière, shepherd's pie and reasonable accommodation
Our favourite specialist in 18th century New France, Emmanuel Nivon, gave us a little lesson on the origins of tourtière over the holiday, by the way. We had polished off the potato sausage and sil, (Swedish pickled herring) and gone on to gâteau mocha, the excellent, multi-layered cream, coffee and chocolate cake that Sophie makes from her grand’maman Jacqueline Mercier’s recipe.
There are those who say that tourtière takes its name from the tourte or passenger pigeon once used in the meat pie that is a staple of Quebec and French Canadian holiday food. But that’s not so, Emmanuel said: it comes from the round pan, the tourte, in which the pie was made. The Dictionnaire étytmologique de la langue française agrees: it says that tourtière, which it dates from 1573, has its origins in the Latin vulgate torta, as in round bread or torta panis.
There are as many recipes for tourtière there are Quebec families, but oddly, it did not win the competition for the “national dish” of Quebec, which Le Devoir recently conducted. That prize went to what is called here pâté chinois, or shepherd’s pie.
My first reaction to this story was: this has to be a joke! Think of the hilarious dinner party the London bachelor girl Bridget Jones gave featuring shepherd’s pie. But if Le Devoir’s experts are serious, the fact that the mixture of mashed potatoes, ground meat and corn won is evidence that Quebec has been accommodating reasonably all kinds of culinary and other influences for a long time.
There are those who say that tourtière takes its name from the tourte or passenger pigeon once used in the meat pie that is a staple of Quebec and French Canadian holiday food. But that’s not so, Emmanuel said: it comes from the round pan, the tourte, in which the pie was made. The Dictionnaire étytmologique de la langue française agrees: it says that tourtière, which it dates from 1573, has its origins in the Latin vulgate torta, as in round bread or torta panis.
There are as many recipes for tourtière there are Quebec families, but oddly, it did not win the competition for the “national dish” of Quebec, which Le Devoir recently conducted. That prize went to what is called here pâté chinois, or shepherd’s pie.
My first reaction to this story was: this has to be a joke! Think of the hilarious dinner party the London bachelor girl Bridget Jones gave featuring shepherd’s pie. But if Le Devoir’s experts are serious, the fact that the mixture of mashed potatoes, ground meat and corn won is evidence that Quebec has been accommodating reasonably all kinds of culinary and other influences for a long time.
Wednesday, 26 December 2007
And a Happy Boxing Day, Too!
Today is Boxing Day in Canada, a very civilized holiday even if its origins are rather feudal. The story is that it was the day when the minions came around to collect their Chritsmas due from the lord of the manor. Now some people rush out to after-Christmas sales, but I think that's a waste of a perfectly good excuse to relax after all the Dec. 24 and 25 festivities. It is chance to sit around and enjoy the after-effects of Christmas, read the books received, listen to the music, and nibble at the left-overs.
So, enjoy yourself, while I go into the living room where the cat will join me for a nice afternoon's read.
So, enjoy yourself, while I go into the living room where the cat will join me for a nice afternoon's read.
Friday, 21 December 2007
Merry Christmas from the Soderstroms
Best wishes for the best holiday season ever from all of us.
Lee and Mary
And if you want to know more about our year, check out the holiday blog.
A Québécois classic for le Réveillon de Noël
When we arrived in Montreal many years ago, we brought with us holiday traditions from the US. In short order, though, we realized that our Québécois friends here did things in different and delightful ways.
The classic Québec celebration is a réveillon, a party that begins in early evening and continues until late at night. These days it may include going to midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, but not necessarily. What is a constant is good food and fellowship.
We had no family here, so for many years we celebrated with other American expats on Christmas Day. Over the years though, Christmas Eve has become more important. Lee’s family used to have a horrible dish called lutfisk, but when I found it impossible to find here (it takes cod preserved in quick lime) I began to make the much better Swedish potato sausage his mother often served on Christmas day. But I want to share a real Québec recipe for a réveillon: la tourtière du Lac Saint-Jean. I make it every year at least once during the holiday season. It cooks all afternoon, and makes the house smell wonderful. And it feeds a crowd—just what you need when you are part of a famille nombreuse as they say here.
La tourtière du Lac Saint-Jean de Mme Gravel de Chicoutimi
(courtesy of Éric Gravel and Donna Duseigne)
Enough pie crust for three ordinary pies
A large roaster or similar deep, oblong oven-safe pot with a lid
1 1/2 pounds pork, cut in cubes 1/2 inch by 1/2 inch
1 1/2 pounds beef, cut in cubes 1/2 inch by 1/2 inch
1 1/2 pounds chicken breast, cut in cubes 1/2 inch by 1/2 inch
3 onions cut in the same size cube
5 potatoes cut in the same size cube
2 tsp each, salt and pepper
2-3 cups chicken bouillon (cut back on salt if bouillon is salty)
Back in the old days the meats would have been things hunted: duck, moose, deer and so on. Feel free to use some game as replacement if you have it.
Line pot with pie crust, rolled relatively thick, making sure that the lid will be able to fit.
Put meat and vegetables, add enough good chicken bouillon to cover the meat. Top with remaining pie crust. Bake uncovered in 375 F oven for an hour. Cover with lid and reduce heat to 225 F for 4 to 5 hours. You may have to adjust heat so that the tourtière continues to bubble a little, but the crust around the edge doesn't burn. Serve with green tomato relish, also called chow chow.
There are other several other kinds of tourtière, and perhaps I’ll post another for New Year’s.
The classic Québec celebration is a réveillon, a party that begins in early evening and continues until late at night. These days it may include going to midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, but not necessarily. What is a constant is good food and fellowship.
We had no family here, so for many years we celebrated with other American expats on Christmas Day. Over the years though, Christmas Eve has become more important. Lee’s family used to have a horrible dish called lutfisk, but when I found it impossible to find here (it takes cod preserved in quick lime) I began to make the much better Swedish potato sausage his mother often served on Christmas day. But I want to share a real Québec recipe for a réveillon: la tourtière du Lac Saint-Jean. I make it every year at least once during the holiday season. It cooks all afternoon, and makes the house smell wonderful. And it feeds a crowd—just what you need when you are part of a famille nombreuse as they say here.
La tourtière du Lac Saint-Jean de Mme Gravel de Chicoutimi
(courtesy of Éric Gravel and Donna Duseigne)
Enough pie crust for three ordinary pies
A large roaster or similar deep, oblong oven-safe pot with a lid
1 1/2 pounds pork, cut in cubes 1/2 inch by 1/2 inch
1 1/2 pounds beef, cut in cubes 1/2 inch by 1/2 inch
1 1/2 pounds chicken breast, cut in cubes 1/2 inch by 1/2 inch
3 onions cut in the same size cube
5 potatoes cut in the same size cube
2 tsp each, salt and pepper
2-3 cups chicken bouillon (cut back on salt if bouillon is salty)
Back in the old days the meats would have been things hunted: duck, moose, deer and so on. Feel free to use some game as replacement if you have it.
Line pot with pie crust, rolled relatively thick, making sure that the lid will be able to fit.
Put meat and vegetables, add enough good chicken bouillon to cover the meat. Top with remaining pie crust. Bake uncovered in 375 F oven for an hour. Cover with lid and reduce heat to 225 F for 4 to 5 hours. You may have to adjust heat so that the tourtière continues to bubble a little, but the crust around the edge doesn't burn. Serve with green tomato relish, also called chow chow.
There are other several other kinds of tourtière, and perhaps I’ll post another for New Year’s.
Saturday Photo: The Flowers of the Solstice
Today is the winter solstice, and the light will be returning soon. Of course, if your house is shaded by leaves in summer, it is likely that your house plants have been enjoying a boost of solar energy for the last little while.My house plants have two growth spurts. One comes in the spring, when the days are well and truly becoming longer. The other arrives in late fall and early winter when the leaves are finally off the trees and the sunny, even if cold, weather arrives. This is the point when it is important to fertilize plants, because with the increased intensity of light (even if its duration is short) they will want to grow. I've had good luck in getting number of house plants to bloom nicely in the winter, including hibiscus and oranges.
Does the heart good to see the flowers when the weather is wintery. And this year, the plants should get an added input of light because with the mountains of white outside, the light coming through the windows on sunny days will be even more intense than usual.
The Phoenicians and Vikings As Globalization Pioneers: The Story of Saffron
Globalization is a recent term, but it’s clear that that the world has been interconnected by trade for a long time. This came home to me this week when my friend Carol Greene sent me this great picture of the Cornish saffron bread she and her husband make at Christmas a couple of days after I posted my story about the Swedish saffron buns we make for St. Lucia’s Day, December 13.
"This is the batch Frank made this morning. He has already given away (or we have eaten) all of the other two batches. This is almost the essence of Christmas for us, and the connection is my Cornish heritage,” she wrote on Monday. “I used to enjoy thinking that saffron got to Cornwall from a ship of the Spanish Armada which was wrecked, but I have been disabused of this notion. The connection apparently goes back much earlier to the Phoenicians who traded it when they came to Cornwall for its tin. 'The Phoenicians dedicated saffron cakes to the goddess, Astarte, a mystique that may well have appealed to the Cornish.' 'Saffron refreshes the spirits, and is good against fainting fits and the palpitation of the heart'" she quotes from Saffron and Currants: A Cornish Heritage Cookbook by Susan Pellowe.
Just how saffron became a staple in festive Scandinavian bakery is story not quite as old. The Normans (“north men”) spent a lot of time between the 9th and 12 centuries roaming the seas. Some were pirates: the word “Viking” comes from the Norse “vik” or bay so a Viking was one who lurks there. Others were traders and colonists, going west into what is now Russia, east across the Atlantic to Iceland, Greenland and North America, and south as far as the Mediterranean. Sicily was ruled by Vikings for more than 100 years, whence the importation of the virgin martyr St. Lucia to become a symbol of light on the darkest days of the year (her name day at the time was about the solstice.) Saffron was imported during the same great trading period, and the lovely yellow it gives to baked goods probably reminded people of the sun.
Thursday, 20 December 2007
The Nutcracker: An Evolving Tradition, a Continuing Pleasure
Late afternoon in the concourse of Place des Arts in downtown Montreal. For the moment there is a lull in the foot traffic headed toward the Métro, the box office, the shops. Two televisions are showing videos of the Grands Ballets canadiens’ production of The Nutcracker, with the King of Candy cavorting around as Clara and her prince arrive in the Land of Snow. Tchaikovsky’s music rollicks over the echoing feet and, from the outside, the roar of snow removing equipment on St. Catherine Street.Two small girls stand in front of the TVs, one watching each. Next to them are their mothers, holding extra hats and gloves as well as shopping bags. All four are entranced by the music, the colour and the movement. Visions of—well, if not sugarplums, then princes and beautiful dresses and little girls whom everyone loves—dance in their heads.
The GBC’s Nutcracker is a family tradition for us. Lee and I went even before we had kids, and we took Elin for the first time when she was four. Lukas joined us when he reached the same age: he was delighted by the cannon blast when the mice and the toy soldiers fought, but then fell asleep. Both of them tried out to be enfants de la fête during their ballet years: Elin got a call-back and Lukas, who might have been chosen, decided at 8 that he wanted to concentrate on his hockey.
This year the two girls who share the role of Clara symbolize the new Quebec. One, 11 year old Mariya Kyrychenko, was born in Ukraine and only came to Montreal when she was 6. The other, Eden Solomon who is also 11, is the offspring of a Canadian mother and an Eritrean father. Quite fitting in this time when Quebec is doing some navel gazing through a commission on “reasonable accommodation” in light of Quebec’s changing demographics.
This Sunday afternoon we'll all be at the Nutcracker, the kids' significant others included. It will start the holidays officially, and then, just to do something different, we’ll go out for a Vietnamese and Chinese supper in Chinatown which is just a few blocks away. No special efforts at reasonable accommodation required to enjoy such an abundance of good things.
Publicity photo of Callye Robinson by John Hall
Taken from the GBC's website with thanks.
Wednesday, 19 December 2007
Good News, Bad News the Day after Montreal's Real Car-less Day
Yesterday was traffic Hell, one of the worst rush hours in memory. Or so said the traffic reporters this morning. Things went well on Monday in the wake of the second big snow storm in two week because people either stayed home or took public transit, but on Tuesday it was gridlock city. At 3:30 p.m., after 20 minutes on a nearly immobilized bus on Park Avenue, I saw that a woman was walking faster than the bus was crawling, so I got out and walked too. When I caught up with her, we both laughed at how much better time we were making on foot.
Yet there was some good transit news yesterday: Quebec Transport Minister Julie Boulet and Joël Gauthier, head of the regional transport authority (the Agence métropolitaine de transport or AGM) announced contracts for 160 new double decker train cars to be built by Bombardier’s La Pocatière plant. The $136 million investment will serve Montreal’s suburban commuter train lines: with the first cars scheduled to be delivered in 2009.
The AGM has seen its ridership go up by 120 per cent over the last 10 years, in spite of the fact that its 193 cars are at least 40 years old. Currently about 65,000 passengers take AGM train during rush hours, which is a drop in the bucket compared to the number of people who take buses and the Métro (the STM—Société de transport de Montréal—records more than 2.2 million trips a day.)
The new train cars, however, will be (maybe ironically) a step in the right direction.
Yet there was some good transit news yesterday: Quebec Transport Minister Julie Boulet and Joël Gauthier, head of the regional transport authority (the Agence métropolitaine de transport or AGM) announced contracts for 160 new double decker train cars to be built by Bombardier’s La Pocatière plant. The $136 million investment will serve Montreal’s suburban commuter train lines: with the first cars scheduled to be delivered in 2009.
The AGM has seen its ridership go up by 120 per cent over the last 10 years, in spite of the fact that its 193 cars are at least 40 years old. Currently about 65,000 passengers take AGM train during rush hours, which is a drop in the bucket compared to the number of people who take buses and the Métro (the STM—Société de transport de Montréal—records more than 2.2 million trips a day.)
The new train cars, however, will be (maybe ironically) a step in the right direction.
Tuesday, 18 December 2007
Report from the Snow-filled Streets of Montreal: A Real Carless Day
The schools were out yesterday, exams at McGill University were even postponed, and many people obviously didn’t go to work, or took public transportation. With the second storm leaving more than 30 cm of snow on the city in two weeks, it was not weather for cars—if you could find them. As I walked around yesterday afternoon I saw a number of cars completely covered by snow with their despairing owners, shovels in hand, trying to dig them out.
Downtown was crowded, though. Many must have had the same thought I did—there won’t be anyone shopping so now’s the time. Coming back, the bus was packed, but it moved along quickly because there was so lititle traffic.
This morning the traffic reporter kept saying how much worse conditions were than yesterday. The roads were clearer—snow removal crews have been working overtime, literally—but schools were back in session and the impromptu holiday was over. The bridges were blocked by 6:30 a.m. and coming in from the off-island northern suburbs drivers reported even longer times than usual.
There are definite advantages to going carless, it seems to me.
Downtown was crowded, though. Many must have had the same thought I did—there won’t be anyone shopping so now’s the time. Coming back, the bus was packed, but it moved along quickly because there was so lititle traffic.
This morning the traffic reporter kept saying how much worse conditions were than yesterday. The roads were clearer—snow removal crews have been working overtime, literally—but schools were back in session and the impromptu holiday was over. The bridges were blocked by 6:30 a.m. and coming in from the off-island northern suburbs drivers reported even longer times than usual.
There are definite advantages to going carless, it seems to me.
Monday, 17 December 2007
A Rose by Any Other Name Department: Lawrence Hill's New Novel Gets a Name Change in the US
What’s in a Name?
Someone Knows My Name or The Book of Negroes: Lawrence Hill’s new novel has different titles in the US and Canada for reasons that say a lot about each country and its history.
The book is a first person narrative by Aminata Diallo (also called Meena Dee,) a woman who was captured by slavers in what is now Mali about 1745. Her story takes her across the Atlantic to the Carolinas, north to New York in the time of the American Revolution,, to Nova Scotia, across the Atlantic again to Sierra Leone and then to England in time for the outlawing of the slave trade in 1807. A person of great intelligence and resourcefulness, she is hired by the retiring British forces at the end of the Revolution to keep a register of the 3,000 slaves the British Loyalists owned, called the Book of Negroes.
Hill’s book was on the long list for Canada’s Giller Prize this fall, and was chosen as part of several “best of 2007” lists. But you won’t find it anywhere in the US as The Book of Negroes. His publishers there got much negative feedback on the title. Too academic, and also—worse—Negro is now considered a derogatory term there. (It isn’t the preferred term in Canada, but the negative connotations are not as strong.)
“Language evolves,” Hill says, adding that his own father—a “proud African-American” born in 1923—used “Negro” as his term of choice. The younger Hill came up with the new title which has several references in the book, as well as echoing James Baldwin’s novel from the 1950s, Nobody Knows My Name.
Whatever you call the book, though, Hill’s novel is a moving, fascinating read. Definitely recommended by the Atwater Library’s book discussion group which found much to say about it when its members met last week.
Someone Knows My Name or The Book of Negroes: Lawrence Hill’s new novel has different titles in the US and Canada for reasons that say a lot about each country and its history.
The book is a first person narrative by Aminata Diallo (also called Meena Dee,) a woman who was captured by slavers in what is now Mali about 1745. Her story takes her across the Atlantic to the Carolinas, north to New York in the time of the American Revolution,, to Nova Scotia, across the Atlantic again to Sierra Leone and then to England in time for the outlawing of the slave trade in 1807. A person of great intelligence and resourcefulness, she is hired by the retiring British forces at the end of the Revolution to keep a register of the 3,000 slaves the British Loyalists owned, called the Book of Negroes.
Hill’s book was on the long list for Canada’s Giller Prize this fall, and was chosen as part of several “best of 2007” lists. But you won’t find it anywhere in the US as The Book of Negroes. His publishers there got much negative feedback on the title. Too academic, and also—worse—Negro is now considered a derogatory term there. (It isn’t the preferred term in Canada, but the negative connotations are not as strong.)
“Language evolves,” Hill says, adding that his own father—a “proud African-American” born in 1923—used “Negro” as his term of choice. The younger Hill came up with the new title which has several references in the book, as well as echoing James Baldwin’s novel from the 1950s, Nobody Knows My Name.
Whatever you call the book, though, Hill’s novel is a moving, fascinating read. Definitely recommended by the Atwater Library’s book discussion group which found much to say about it when its members met last week.
Friday, 14 December 2007
The Violets of Usambara and Brian Mulroney
It’s done, except for reading the page proofs! Yesterday afternoon Marc Côté, head of Cormorant Books , called with the last questions about editing The Violets of Usambara. There weren’t many: associate editor Blake Sproule and I had thrashed out almost everything the week before. What remained were things like the spelling of “tuque” or “toque” and whether “would not, could not” sounded too much like a rhyme from Dr. Suess. So the book will be out early-ish next spring, after nearly 10 years of work.
A most apropos coincidence: I was listening to the 4:30 news on CBC radio when the phone rang. The top story was Brian Mulroney’s testimony before the Ethics Committee of the House of Commons on his dealings with Karlheinz Shreiber, and the $300,000 (or maybe $275,000) that the former Prime Minister received in cash from the German-Canadian businessman. Thomas Brossard, the Canadian politician who goes missing in Burundi in my novel, was one of Mulroney’s stalwarts, and whether or not he was involved in some shady deals is a major element in the story.
Thomas Brossard is pure invention, of course.
Does life follow art, or art follow life?
A most apropos coincidence: I was listening to the 4:30 news on CBC radio when the phone rang. The top story was Brian Mulroney’s testimony before the Ethics Committee of the House of Commons on his dealings with Karlheinz Shreiber, and the $300,000 (or maybe $275,000) that the former Prime Minister received in cash from the German-Canadian businessman. Thomas Brossard, the Canadian politician who goes missing in Burundi in my novel, was one of Mulroney’s stalwarts, and whether or not he was involved in some shady deals is a major element in the story.
Thomas Brossard is pure invention, of course.
Does life follow art, or art follow life?
Thursday, 13 December 2007
Saturday Photo: The Snow Keeps Snowing
The snow keeps coming down. Last week we alternated between very cold and clear weather--minus 13 C as the high--and days with temperatures near freezing but with snow. The last of the mountains left by the really big storm the week before that are finally cleared awayLast night the Durochères, a reading group of friends mostly from our street, got together for our annual holiday potluck dinner. We hold it in the apartment of a neighbor who now lives in a highrise on Sherbrooke St. and it was good to be able to find a parking place since the streets were reasonably cleared. But we're supposed to get another 30 cm or so on Sunday. This is shaping up to be a winter for those who love skiing, skating and walking in winter wonderlands.
The Durochères vote on what book read during the year is their favourite and A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry (in its French translation L'Équilibre du monde) won. More about book lists next weeks.
St. Lucia's Day: Another Festival of Lights for a Dark Season
Today is St. Lucia’s Day, the Sicilian virgin martyr who is celebrated in Scandanavia with candles and special baking. Given the way the Julian calendar was skewed at the time the Norse country became Christian in the 11th century, it’s easy to say how this festival of light could be conflated with pagan celebrations of the winter solstice: the shortest day of the year was about Dec. 13 then.
Here’s the recipe for Luciasbrod or Safronsbrod that I make every year. It is not an old Soderstrom tradition, but something we started after we got married (my name was McGowan, we eat oatmeal and most of us drink Scotch, not aquavit.) The recipe has been adapted over the years from one I found in advertising for flour. When the kids were in elementary school I took the dough to school several times to do a workshop on baking and astronomy (you can pass on a lot of information about the sun, the earth's orbit and inclination, length of day, and the different calendars. while you're supervising kids rolling the dough between their palms.)
Safransbrod, Lucia buns, Nisse buns, Luciakitti
3 tsp. dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water
1/2 cup scalded milk
good pinch saffron
1/4 cup butter
l tablespoon grated lemon rind
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
4-5 cups flour
l/3 cup mixed, diced candied fruit
1/3 cup raisins
1/3 cup chopped almonds
Put yeast in warm water to dissolve. Heat milk with saffron and butter. Let cool after butter melts. Mix with yeast, sugar, salt, eggs and lemon rind. Add about half of flour and mix until stiff dough is formed add fruit, raisins and nuts. Turn out on floured surface and knead, adding flour as necessary until a smooth, elastic dough is formed (about 10 minutes.) Let rise in a warm place until double in bulk. Punch down, then divide into l6 equal pieces. Roll each out until long and skinny, Form an S bun. Let rise again until double. Bake at 375 F. for 12-15 minutes until light brown.
Here’s the recipe for Luciasbrod or Safronsbrod that I make every year. It is not an old Soderstrom tradition, but something we started after we got married (my name was McGowan, we eat oatmeal and most of us drink Scotch, not aquavit.) The recipe has been adapted over the years from one I found in advertising for flour. When the kids were in elementary school I took the dough to school several times to do a workshop on baking and astronomy (you can pass on a lot of information about the sun, the earth's orbit and inclination, length of day, and the different calendars. while you're supervising kids rolling the dough between their palms.)
Safransbrod, Lucia buns, Nisse buns, Luciakitti
3 tsp. dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water
1/2 cup scalded milk
good pinch saffron
1/4 cup butter
l tablespoon grated lemon rind
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
4-5 cups flour
l/3 cup mixed, diced candied fruit
1/3 cup raisins
1/3 cup chopped almonds
Put yeast in warm water to dissolve. Heat milk with saffron and butter. Let cool after butter melts. Mix with yeast, sugar, salt, eggs and lemon rind. Add about half of flour and mix until stiff dough is formed add fruit, raisins and nuts. Turn out on floured surface and knead, adding flour as necessary until a smooth, elastic dough is formed (about 10 minutes.) Let rise in a warm place until double in bulk. Punch down, then divide into l6 equal pieces. Roll each out until long and skinny, Form an S bun. Let rise again until double. Bake at 375 F. for 12-15 minutes until light brown.
Wednesday, 12 December 2007
Radio Canada Puts Classical Music on the Net
Now available at a computer near you: classical music from Radio Canada!
Radio Canada’s Espace musique—the equivalent of CBC’s Radio 2—has begun promoting a new service on the Radio Can website called Espace classique which is billed as an alternative to Espace musique’s new, varied musical programming which, everyone agrees, shortchanges classical music.
Supposedly all you have to do is go to the Radio Can website, follow the links, and you’ll end up with a choice of three kinds of programming, called Zen, Vitamine, and Noël. At least that was what France Davoine, the programming director, told the press this week, but I was unable to get any further than a rather nice Deutche Grammaphon recording of Beethoven’s Fifth. Perhaps this is just a temporary glitch: the site was launched last September, but wasn’t publicized. The current media attention here is supposed to draw attention to a new feature: the site now offers the chance to download works recorded for Radio Can, beginning a free one of pianist Louis Lortie playing Liszt
But, as Christopher Huss notes in the Le Devoir, Espace musique is broadcasting less and less classical music. Is this an adequate substitute? I really don’t think so, either for listeners or for Canada’s fantastic serious music world.
Don’t be surprised if Radio 2 begins a similar service though. The dumbing down of music programming was first tried out at Radio Canada 18 months before the big changes last spring at CBC’s Radio 2.
Note: it will be interesting to follow the ratings of CBC/Radio Can programming over the next several months. All parts of the Radio Can service in Montreal showed a jump in the last BBM rating, covering the fall. Can't imagine what this means without subscribing to BBM and getting the stats for individual programs.
Radio Canada’s Espace musique—the equivalent of CBC’s Radio 2—has begun promoting a new service on the Radio Can website called Espace classique which is billed as an alternative to Espace musique’s new, varied musical programming which, everyone agrees, shortchanges classical music.
Supposedly all you have to do is go to the Radio Can website, follow the links, and you’ll end up with a choice of three kinds of programming, called Zen, Vitamine, and Noël. At least that was what France Davoine, the programming director, told the press this week, but I was unable to get any further than a rather nice Deutche Grammaphon recording of Beethoven’s Fifth. Perhaps this is just a temporary glitch: the site was launched last September, but wasn’t publicized. The current media attention here is supposed to draw attention to a new feature: the site now offers the chance to download works recorded for Radio Can, beginning a free one of pianist Louis Lortie playing Liszt
But, as Christopher Huss notes in the Le Devoir, Espace musique is broadcasting less and less classical music. Is this an adequate substitute? I really don’t think so, either for listeners or for Canada’s fantastic serious music world.
Don’t be surprised if Radio 2 begins a similar service though. The dumbing down of music programming was first tried out at Radio Canada 18 months before the big changes last spring at CBC’s Radio 2.
Note: it will be interesting to follow the ratings of CBC/Radio Can programming over the next several months. All parts of the Radio Can service in Montreal showed a jump in the last BBM rating, covering the fall. Can't imagine what this means without subscribing to BBM and getting the stats for individual programs.
Tuesday, 11 December 2007
News from Burundi: Refugees Are Going Home, Perhaps
Refugee crises all too often go on and on. Early this month, Burundian and Tanzanian officials as well as UN representatives sat down to talk about the 120,000 refugees from Burundi’s ethnic troubles still living in refugee camps in Tanzania. According to the UN news agency IRIN, more 40,000 were repatriated in 2007, bringing to 430,000 the number returned to their home country since 2001.
That was the year when a difficult and still only partially-completed peace process was begun in this country in the Great Lakes Region of Central Africa. Trouble between Tutsis and the Hutu majority flared in 1993, a year before the genocide which saw about 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus killed in neighboring Rwanda. While the bloodshed was never as violent in Burundi as in Rwanda, the country is only slowly recovering.
The vast majority (79 per cent) of Burundians remaining in refugee camps in Tanzania do not want to return home, according to a study released at the meeting. Tanzania wants to close the five remaining camps by next June: six were cut in 2007.
Another 218,000 Burundians have been in Tanzania since 1972 when they fled during another period of ethnic conflict. They have permanent refugee status and have been considered self sufficient since 1985.
And you thought your life was difficult?
That was the year when a difficult and still only partially-completed peace process was begun in this country in the Great Lakes Region of Central Africa. Trouble between Tutsis and the Hutu majority flared in 1993, a year before the genocide which saw about 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus killed in neighboring Rwanda. While the bloodshed was never as violent in Burundi as in Rwanda, the country is only slowly recovering.
The vast majority (79 per cent) of Burundians remaining in refugee camps in Tanzania do not want to return home, according to a study released at the meeting. Tanzania wants to close the five remaining camps by next June: six were cut in 2007.
Another 218,000 Burundians have been in Tanzania since 1972 when they fled during another period of ethnic conflict. They have permanent refugee status and have been considered self sufficient since 1985.
And you thought your life was difficult?
Monday, 10 December 2007
Smog Alert in Montreal: Another Argument for Getting People out of Their Cars
Smog alert this morning! The temperature is -10 C, and the sky is overcast which is far different from the smog alerts of my Southern California childhood. Then smog settled in with hot days and still air, but the alerts have two things in common: temperature inversion layers and too many cars.
When I woke up this morning, the traffic reporter on Radio-Can was talking about how the bridges leading into Montreal were already blocked at 5:45 a.m. Traffic has been horrible for the last week in the aftermath of a big snow, and you’d think that people would take public transportation more, or at least car pool. Probably there has been some of that, but not enough. Certainly not enough to stop thousands of cars from idling as they lurch their way across bridges and along auto routes.
Vehicles aren’t supposed to idle more than three minutes in Montreal. The regulation is not very well observed, but it’s a step in the right direction. Now ways have to be found to get people to work and school in vehicles other than private autos. If not the situation will get worse, and rush hour begin earlier and end later.
What does that do to people's lives?
When I woke up this morning, the traffic reporter on Radio-Can was talking about how the bridges leading into Montreal were already blocked at 5:45 a.m. Traffic has been horrible for the last week in the aftermath of a big snow, and you’d think that people would take public transportation more, or at least car pool. Probably there has been some of that, but not enough. Certainly not enough to stop thousands of cars from idling as they lurch their way across bridges and along auto routes.
Vehicles aren’t supposed to idle more than three minutes in Montreal. The regulation is not very well observed, but it’s a step in the right direction. Now ways have to be found to get people to work and school in vehicles other than private autos. If not the situation will get worse, and rush hour begin earlier and end later.
What does that do to people's lives?
Saturday, 8 December 2007
Saturday Photo: It's Snow Removal Time
It's snow removal time. The storm that stalled for 36 hours over Montreal this week dropped between 38 and 45 cm (15.9 and 17.7 inches) depending on the neighborhood. City crews did the east side of our street Wednesday morning and in the wee hours of Thursday. The bill for plowing and removing the snow from this storm will run to about $17 million on the island of Montreal, with about $130 million budgeted for the whole season.The snow is knee deep, quite beautiful, and extremely early. When I was shoveling in back on Tuesday, a woman came cross country skiing down the lane, and Wednesday afternoon I saw other people carrying their skis, headed back from skiing on Mount Royal. Thursday I had to go out in the car, and wished I hadn't, because getting around on foot really hasn't been a problem since sidewalks get cleared first in densely settled neighborhoods. Driving--and particularly parking--is much more complicated. We've got several things to do this weekend, but luckily all of them can be done by public transportation or shank's mare.
Another reason for living in the centre of the city.
Friday, 7 December 2007
Taxes Are What We Pay for Civilized Society Department: La Grande Guignolée and Society's Responsibilities
Yesterday was the “Grande guignolée,” the massive charity drive sponsored by nearly all the media outlets in Quebec. More than $260,000 were collected in Montreal, along with the equivalent of about 3600 Christmas baskets of food and household items. It’s quite an event—radio and television personalities on streetcorners all over town, and bicycle rides and with favourite columnists and the like being raffled off by newspapers. Last year the campaign—whose name is inspired by a medieval tradition of troubadors going from house to house singing and collecting charity—raised more than $2 million throughout the province between Dec. 1 and the Feast of Kings, Jan.6.
As Françoise David, one of the spokespersons for the left wing party Québec Solidaire, says, nobody is against the Guignolée. How can you, when it obviously provides needed funds for charitable causes? But it is hardly enough. The danger with these short term projects is double: it’s easy to forget people with problems the rest of the year, and having given, it’s easy to forget that society as a whole has a long term stake in getting to the root of those problems. Good social programs, an adequate minimum wage, full employment, government help for women’s shelters, good public schools: we need to push for things like these even more vigorously than we scratch to find a little change for once-a-year charity drives.
By the way, the guignolée tradition shows up in Ste. Geneviève, Missouri, not far from St. Louis, as charitable pub crawl on New Year's Eve. The website compares it to "wassailing," and it also resembles the Mummers of Newfoundland and Ireland.
The poor seem always to be with us, alas. Faut ça change! as they say here. We oughta do something about it.
As Françoise David, one of the spokespersons for the left wing party Québec Solidaire, says, nobody is against the Guignolée. How can you, when it obviously provides needed funds for charitable causes? But it is hardly enough. The danger with these short term projects is double: it’s easy to forget people with problems the rest of the year, and having given, it’s easy to forget that society as a whole has a long term stake in getting to the root of those problems. Good social programs, an adequate minimum wage, full employment, government help for women’s shelters, good public schools: we need to push for things like these even more vigorously than we scratch to find a little change for once-a-year charity drives.
By the way, the guignolée tradition shows up in Ste. Geneviève, Missouri, not far from St. Louis, as charitable pub crawl on New Year's Eve. The website compares it to "wassailing," and it also resembles the Mummers of Newfoundland and Ireland.
The poor seem always to be with us, alas. Faut ça change! as they say here. We oughta do something about it.
Thursday, 6 December 2007
The Home Stretch for The Violets of Usambara
What you see here is the cover of my new novel The Violets of Usambara will be--perhaps. The publisher Cormorant Books is getting ready to print its spring catalogue, and this is the design I think they've decided on, with some possible small adjustments. Certainly, I like it because it's visually arresting and hints at both the beauty and the darkness of the story.
That being said, today I'm reading the manuscript after it has been corrected by the copy editor, who also has suggested some tweaking here and there. Haven't got very far, but obviously he's done a conscientious job.
To refresh your memory, here's a teaser:
April, 1997: A Canadian politician goes missing in Burundi while investigating refugee camps after the genocide in Rwanda. Back in Montreal his wife waits for news and tries to help friends caught up in a money laundering scheme. A suspenseful story that brings up a host of political, personal and spiritual questions.
Wednesday, 5 December 2007
Fall-out from War: Genes and Good News in Iran
The cashier stopped checking out my order yesterday to look at the photograph accompanying a bizarre story in The Globe and Mail I was buying. It seems a bright Toronto girl recently won free high speed internet access while her father, out on bail in a terrorism case, has been denied unsupervised communication with the outside world.
“Look at her eyes,” the cashier said, pointing to Mahmoud Jaballah’s wife, whose gray eyes were the only thing showing in her veiled face. The cashier looked at me with a puzzled look on her own face.
Hmm, I thought, just like those famous National Geographic photos of an Afghan girl with startling green eyes. “Well, you know,” I said, “people get around. There were a lot of armies marching back and forth in the Middle East. Armies leave babies sometimes. Who knows where those genes came from.”
The cashier laughed. Her own broad face with dark, slanting eyes looked Chinese to me, but I couldn’t be sure.
“I have a friend whose family came from Scotland way back and she’s got that epicanthic fold on her eyelids,” I added. “You never know what happened in the past.”
The young woman laughed again, and began to check out the next customer. “You never know,” she repeated.
And that is probably just as well, given our troubled history of invasions and war. The pain and sorrow is hidden in the background, happily only showing itself in quiet times in charms, stories, and tale-tell inheritance. In my own family, my father, a black Scot, was in demand for “first stepping” on New Year’s Day, since to have someone with dark hair and dark eyes be the first to cross the threshold in a new year was considered good luck. I wondered what might lie behind the custom until I realized that it might symbolize a wish not to have Viking marauders attack in the coming year.
All this is by way of preface for the bit of good news which came out this week: that US intelligence says Iran quit working on atomic weapons three years ago. That, in itself, is good news, but what is even better news is that the US has had to admit that. Maybe we will be spared another horrendous military adventure in that part of the world. Better, by far, to make love, not war. Better yet for that love to be reciprocal, not forcibly taken.
“Look at her eyes,” the cashier said, pointing to Mahmoud Jaballah’s wife, whose gray eyes were the only thing showing in her veiled face. The cashier looked at me with a puzzled look on her own face.
Hmm, I thought, just like those famous National Geographic photos of an Afghan girl with startling green eyes. “Well, you know,” I said, “people get around. There were a lot of armies marching back and forth in the Middle East. Armies leave babies sometimes. Who knows where those genes came from.”
The cashier laughed. Her own broad face with dark, slanting eyes looked Chinese to me, but I couldn’t be sure.
“I have a friend whose family came from Scotland way back and she’s got that epicanthic fold on her eyelids,” I added. “You never know what happened in the past.”
The young woman laughed again, and began to check out the next customer. “You never know,” she repeated.
And that is probably just as well, given our troubled history of invasions and war. The pain and sorrow is hidden in the background, happily only showing itself in quiet times in charms, stories, and tale-tell inheritance. In my own family, my father, a black Scot, was in demand for “first stepping” on New Year’s Day, since to have someone with dark hair and dark eyes be the first to cross the threshold in a new year was considered good luck. I wondered what might lie behind the custom until I realized that it might symbolize a wish not to have Viking marauders attack in the coming year.
All this is by way of preface for the bit of good news which came out this week: that US intelligence says Iran quit working on atomic weapons three years ago. That, in itself, is good news, but what is even better news is that the US has had to admit that. Maybe we will be spared another horrendous military adventure in that part of the world. Better, by far, to make love, not war. Better yet for that love to be reciprocal, not forcibly taken.
Tuesday, 4 December 2007
My Aching Back Department: the Coldest Winter in Years Has Started
Last week Environment Canada announced that this winter should be the coldest in a good 15 years. Doesn’t seem to gibe with global warming at face value, but one of the scenarios turning up as meteorologists play with their models is for more severe weather everywhere.
Melting ice caps could also play havoc with the Gulf Stream, which keeps Northern Europe cities much warmer than the cities with the same latitude on the North American continent: Montreal at 45’31” north is almost exactly the same latitude as Milan’s 45’27” north, but it gets much colder here than it does in the Italian city. If the Gulf Stream is diminished or rerouted the result might be a much colder Europe.
But changes in the Gulf Stream have nothing to do what we may be up against, Dave Phillips of Environment Canada said in predicting a return to “normal” winters. Colder water temperatures in the Pacific—La Nina effect—are what’s to blame, apparently.
Whatever the cause, it certainly seems that winter has begun with a vengeance. Montreal broke records yesterday with nearly 30 cm (12 inches) of snow falling, and more is due today. Schools closed down, even the inner city Commission scolaire de Montréal which practically never closes because of snow.
Oh yes: the reason this is being posted later than usual is because it took me more than two hours to clean the walks and the snow in front of the garage...
latitude
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/sto
Melting ice caps could also play havoc with the Gulf Stream, which keeps Northern Europe cities much warmer than the cities with the same latitude on the North American continent: Montreal at 45’31” north is almost exactly the same latitude as Milan’s 45’27” north, but it gets much colder here than it does in the Italian city. If the Gulf Stream is diminished or rerouted the result might be a much colder Europe.
But changes in the Gulf Stream have nothing to do what we may be up against, Dave Phillips of Environment Canada said in predicting a return to “normal” winters. Colder water temperatures in the Pacific—La Nina effect—are what’s to blame, apparently.
Whatever the cause, it certainly seems that winter has begun with a vengeance. Montreal broke records yesterday with nearly 30 cm (12 inches) of snow falling, and more is due today. Schools closed down, even the inner city Commission scolaire de Montréal which practically never closes because of snow.
Oh yes: the reason this is being posted later than usual is because it took me more than two hours to clean the walks and the snow in front of the garage...
latitude
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/sto
Monday, 3 December 2007
Does Energy Efficiency Mean More Energy Used in the Long Run?
Does saving energy actually lead to using more of it? Sounds counter-intuitive, but last week analysts for the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce World Money report released a study which suggests that that might be the case.
Going back as far as the 19th century, when energy saving inventions like the Bessemer method of making steel actually led to increases in steel production that outstripped any energy saving, the report suggests the energy efficiencies are counter balanced by greater consumption that wipe out all savings. The more fuel efficient automobiles that were produced following the energy crunch of the 1970s led to a short term decrease in energy consumption, they point out, but 30 years down the road, the shift to gas guzzling SUVs and light trucks has resulted in more gasoline being used than ever. (One amazing statistic: the report says the light trucks are now the “vehicle of choice” for American families.)
Other incentives must be found to keep people from squandering any energy efficiencies industry might come up with, the report says. Easier said than done voluntarily. Are we going to have to undergo a fundamental shift in our economic paradigm so that frugal becomes fashionable? Or will we have to wait until we need gas rationing to take the problem out of our hands?
For a reminder of what the 1970s were like, visit the Canadian Centre for Architecture’s new show Sorry Out of Gas, which looks at the crisis and how architects responded.
Going back as far as the 19th century, when energy saving inventions like the Bessemer method of making steel actually led to increases in steel production that outstripped any energy saving, the report suggests the energy efficiencies are counter balanced by greater consumption that wipe out all savings. The more fuel efficient automobiles that were produced following the energy crunch of the 1970s led to a short term decrease in energy consumption, they point out, but 30 years down the road, the shift to gas guzzling SUVs and light trucks has resulted in more gasoline being used than ever. (One amazing statistic: the report says the light trucks are now the “vehicle of choice” for American families.)
Other incentives must be found to keep people from squandering any energy efficiencies industry might come up with, the report says. Easier said than done voluntarily. Are we going to have to undergo a fundamental shift in our economic paradigm so that frugal becomes fashionable? Or will we have to wait until we need gas rationing to take the problem out of our hands?
For a reminder of what the 1970s were like, visit the Canadian Centre for Architecture’s new show Sorry Out of Gas, which looks at the crisis and how architects responded.
Saturday, 1 December 2007
Saturday Photo: December 1? It Must Be Time for Christmas Cactus
The end of the year is fast approaching, and my Christmas cactus is in bloom. Or rather, one of them is. I have two, one of which blooms before the other. The second has set buds and I’ll bring it up to the sunlight soon.
The plants are quite old: the first was a cutting from a neighbor at least 15 years ago, and the second my sister and her family gave us as a present perhaps 8 years ago. They’ve bloomed every year, and now I think I’ve got the trick down pat.
At first I followed Thalasso Cruso’s advice, which is to put them in a dark closet without water for the month of October and then bring them out into a sunny window. But then I learned that in the wild they bloom in response to length of day, the way chrysanthemums do. Now I wait as long as possible to bring them in: this year it was the third week in October since we didn’t have frost before then. One plant was ready to bloom at that point, but I stalled it by putting it in a room with less sunlight for a week or so. By the first of November it was bursting into bloom, though. The flowers were riotous for nearly three weeks, and a couple remain even now.
Next week I’ll switch plants, bringing the second one up from the basement to the living room. The first I'll put in a sunny window in a bedroom where electric light is on infrequently. Last year, it bloomed a second time, responding, I guess, to the length of day it perceived through the window.
They are lovely plants, whether they bloom once or twice, with their flowers that look like miniature fireworks displays.
Île Charron: Deal Is off, But How Much Is the Land Worth?
It looks like a condo development on the Ile Charron in the middle of the St. Lawrence south of Montreal is off—and some interesting questions arise as to what the would-be developer actually paid a fortune for the 20.6 hectares next to a provincial park.
In a short press release on Friday, Le Groupe Cholette announced that it is withdrawing from the agreement in principle it had with Luc Poirier, who had bought the land for $6 million about a year ago. Poirier talked grandly of selling the land in question to the group for $130 million, and of eco-friendly highrises he and the group would build there. The response from citizens was quick: a petition with 20,000 signatures protesting the development prompted the provincial government to put a development freeze on the land in mid-November. According to Le Devoir, Michel Cholette, president of the group, said in the press release that he has no intention of building a residential development amid such controversy.
No mention of sale prices was made, apparently.
In a short press release on Friday, Le Groupe Cholette announced that it is withdrawing from the agreement in principle it had with Luc Poirier, who had bought the land for $6 million about a year ago. Poirier talked grandly of selling the land in question to the group for $130 million, and of eco-friendly highrises he and the group would build there. The response from citizens was quick: a petition with 20,000 signatures protesting the development prompted the provincial government to put a development freeze on the land in mid-November. According to Le Devoir, Michel Cholette, president of the group, said in the press release that he has no intention of building a residential development amid such controversy.
No mention of sale prices was made, apparently.
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