Merry Christmas and More

Hello all.

Just a quick note (time, it seems these days, is nothing more than a patchwork of quick notes) to say hello to everyone who's dropped by this little piece of cyber real estate since its launch in March. Some trivia about the blog:

- Seventy-one posts (now seventy-two)

- Anywhere between 6 and 12 thousand visitors (depending upon how you read those stats and allowing for the opinions of anonymous IT fascists)

- Nineteen original photos

- an excess of verbosity

- a reasonably low amount (considering some of the topics) of whining and solipsism.

More importantly (which I don't group with trivia) are the comments I've received. I don't have a tally, but that's not really the point. It's always good to get feedback, whether it be good or bad (and it's typically been supportive). Your suggestions are always welcome.

There are a lot of people who consider blogging to be nothing more than a wank-fest extraordinaire; a self-regarding, self-aggrandizing, self-obsessed voyeur's wet-dream-come-true. And for those who hold this opinion there are certainly a lot of blogs that satisfy this judgment - I won't lie. But the existence of proof does not deny the existence of alternatives. I am happy to provide what I feel is a constructive alternative. Alternatives, generally speaking, are not cures. They do not prove viewpoints wrong. If anything, alternatives instill the ultimate provable reality: humanity is always more complex than how we consider it in our day to day lives. Like the world around us, humanity is nearly infinitely complex; it doesn't deny explanation - it actually embraces explanation - but the summary truths of mankind and the world are always elusive. Without answers we must work on voicing the right questions to unlock the glimmering meanings of our existence.

On that note, have a great holiday. Get some sleep. Don't let the newspapers scare you. Save your strength for the fights that truly matter.

mcc

Article/Comment: Watch Your Language

(This post is currently in competition in the Philosophy Blog War. Feel free to cast your vote for it. If you like, you can vote directly by pressing this button.)

I read a very interesting essay on the BBC News website entitled "Chaotic world of climate truth". It's written by Mike Hulme, Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and in it he criticises the hyperbole which casts a pall on the discussion of global warming.

This is not a partisan piece, in the sense that Mr Hulme is not one of a seeming endless army of paid-for voices in the climate change debate. By virtue of his office and his profession, he makes his argument clear from the outset:

Climate change is a reality, and science confirms that human activities are heavily implicated in this change.

But over the last few years a new environmental phenomenon has been constructed in this country - the phenomenon of "catastrophic" climate change.

It seems that mere "climate change" was not going to be bad enough, and so now it must be "catastrophic" to be worthy of attention.

The increasing use of this pejorative term - and its bedfellow qualifiers "chaotic", "irreversible", "rapid" - has altered the public discourse around climate change.

This blog entry isn't about climate change (notice there are no stock images of ensuing storm clouds and other nature metaphors for imminent disaster). I'm not apathetic to the topic but, reading his essay, Mr. Hulme's description of how hyperbole cheapens legitimate debate rang very true and has implications outside of the context of this particular subject.

We're living in an increasingly ideological age. I cannot remember a time (I'm 36, so I gather there are precedents beyond "my years") when words such as intolerance, fundamentalist, and radical were used so extensively (the trope intolerant fundamentalist radical, for example, is no longer the sole jurisdiction of religious persecution but rather has extended itself to include such diverse groups as environmentalists and, my personal favourite, secular progressives). I've written here about the decline of discussion and true debate in N. American society; it's as if we feel that no one will listen to us unless we raise our voices to the sky and colour our points with invective. Nothing is important anymore: it's imperative. Nothing is troubling anymore: it's a crisis.

In exaggerating the situation with alarmist language (which is often disingenuously intended to get attention rather than be realistic/logical) we fall into a trap. Like the boy who cried wolf, if our standard for discussion is hyperbole, then who will truly believe us when there truly is something to be alarmed about?

I see this behaviour not only in the usual suspects (blogs, user groups, forums), but also emanating from supposedly respectable institutions (governments, scientific research institutes, charities). It's in the newspapers, it's on television, it's in our RSS feeds. I suppose it's the scale of it, and the feeling (or fear) that this is the "new normal" of discourse which concerns me.

The language of catastrophe is not the language of science.

Those words start Mr. Hulme's summary. In the context of how I feel I would say that "the language of catastrophe is not the language of an evolved society", but rather one that is becoming more and more tribal and classist.

Photo: Trinity Bellwoods #7

Book Review: Tractatus Logico Philosophicus, by Ludwig Wittgenstein

4.003    Most propositions and questions, that have been written about philosophical matters, are not false, but senseless. We cannot, therefore, answer questions of this kind at all, but only state their senselessness. Most questions and propositions of the philosophers result from the fact that we do not understand the logic of our language.
(They are of the same kind as the question whether the Good is more or less identical than the Beautiful.)
And so it is not to be wondered at that the deepest problems are really no problems.

I've been promising this review for some time. The problem has been - since this is a book not of philosophy but about philosophy - I've needed time for it to sink in. Furthermore, as much as I hate prefacing my opinion (or anyone else doing the same), due to the nature of this book I feel it fair to say a few words: I'm not an academic who specializes in philosophy. I do not have the names and concepts of all the world's great thinkers at my fingertips. As such, I tackled this book as a reasonably intelligent layman. What I have to say about it should be seen through this particular lens. This is not a dissertation and most certainly this is not an academic exercise. So there.

Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico Philosophicus though only clocking-in at a svelte 108 pages, is a monster of a book. It is a perception-altering, densely laid treatise that attempts to clarify not a particular theory per se, but rather, pulls its focus back to comment upon the very scaffolding of philosophical understanding itself.

The way Wittgenstein sees it, there are too many fundamental errors and/or assumptions that sabotage philosophical propositions before they're even written down on paper. The key is to first lay down exactly what a sound proposition is and to understand it in its elemental form. Technically, linguistically, even mathematically Wittgenstein has taken his understanding of what makes a philosophical proposition sound and distilled into a dense uber-logical lexicon.

It's a fascinating (if insufferably semantic) approach: each point and sub-point are laid down like a revolutionary manifesto:

4.023    The proposition determines reality to this extent, that one only needs to say "Yes" or "No" to it to make it agree with reality.
Reality must therefore be completely described by the proposition.
A proposition is the description of a fact.
As the description of an object describes it by its external properties so propositions describe reality by its internal properties.
The proposition constructs a world with the help of a logical scaffolding, and therefore one can actually see in the proposition all the logical features possessed by reality if it is true. One can draw conclusions from a false proposition

Wittgenstein is intent on defining the way in which we attempt to interpret the world rather than the specifics of content. Wittgenstein's reverence for the power and importance of how language is utilized in articulating the world is infectious. His approach, however, requires careful reading. I will be honest in saying that it's difficult to review such a book without having spent a number of weeks re-reading it, making notes, checking out other people's feelings about it, etc.. I have not had the time to do this, and have only managed to read Tractatus twice - however, I will say that while the first reading was a slog in the mud, during the second reading things became suddenly more clear and fascinating.

Who should read this book? Anyone interested in expanding their practical and theoretical understanding of language and logic. While Tractatus is dense and unsparing to the casual reader, those who give Wittgenstein's treatise the time and effort it deserves will undoubtedly walk away richer for the experience (if not wiser). If Aristotle wrote the book on metaphysics, then Wittgenstein has written the book on metaphilosophy.

Tractatus Logico Philosophicus (ISBN 0-486-40445-5) is available at a fine independent bookstore near you. Also available online at various merchants. Note: this review is based upon the 1999 Dover republication (using the translation by C.K. Ogden, which is thought to be the definitive text).

Photo: Shaw Street #5

Defending Tideland

As well as working in the industry, I am first and foremost a fan of films. Films are just as capable of articulating the world (inner and outer) as any other art form ¹. I'm taking it upon myself to defend a film which will undoubtedly appear on many Worst of 2006 lists, which is a shame.

Tideland is a film by Terry Gilliam, a director who has a reputation for being a maverick. He packs his work with unbridled fits of imagination and passion - often much to the chagrin of his investors. One only needs to research the making of films such as The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), Brazil (1985), and more recently his unfinished Don Quixote project ² to understand that this is someone who doesn't listen to reason if reason gets in the way of a neat idea. Tideland is no exception.

Though released only weeks ago it was actually completed in 2005 and spent a long time floating around festivals until it dropped into theatres unceremoniously in October. With few exceptions the film was summarily eviscerated by the critics and subsequently shunned by the movie-going public. It will go on Gilliam's track record as yet another "ambitious failure" ³.

I'm here to say that I've seen Tideland, and it's good. Beguiling at times, but good. The story concerns Jeliza-Rose (Jodelle Ferland), a ten-year-old girl whose abusive mother dies of a drug-overdose. Escaping the city with her scallywag father (played by Jeff Bridges), they wind up at a ramshackle house in the middle of the prairie that once belonged to her grandmother. It has since been abandoned and pretty soon - after her father suffers from a fate similar to her mother - Jeliza-Rose is left alone to fend for herself. The greatest weapon at her disposal, however, is a seemingly bottomless imagination (her friends, from the beginning of the film, are three doll heads she fits onto her fingers and engages in conversation with). Along the way, she encounters her neighbours (which, on the prairie, means a mile away), Dell and Dickens, a rather odd brother and sister; she (played by Janet McTeer) is a taxidermist with a witch-like demeanor and a dire fear of bees. Her brother (wonderfully rendered by Brendan Fletcher) had his brain operated on long ago to counter epilepsy and seems to be more child than man. Dickens and Jeliza-Rose becomes close friends, seemingly mental and emotional equals.

As much as I don't like to say what a film (or any piece of art) is "about", it's clear - particularly given Gilliam's repertoire - that one of the key messages of the film deals with the power of imagination in the face of bleakness. It is a bleak story, I won't kid you (in case my synopsis didn't get it across). However, the key difference between Gilliam and other directors is that his philosophy is never misanthropic; he always shows us a type of reality that is equal parts magical and bittersweet. Jodelle Ferland's performance is this best I've seen this year and an astounding achievement for a child of her age; she is able to render the inner world and perspective of her character without ever being less than convincing.

I went into this film expecting a stinker and I walked away with a lot of haunting questions about childhood and the resilience of imagination. It's a fair criticism to say that, in a film that so intimately (and disturbingly) inhabits a child's world, there could have been an injection of objective perspective so that the audience had a better sense of what was real and what was fantasy. However, aside from that, the film stands comfortably on its own and proudly - in my opinion - beside the best of Gilliam's work. This makes it all the more unfortunate that it got trounced in its theatrical release. While not the first time Gilliam has experienced such disappointment, it seems the price he has had to pay to give us some of the most inspiring and wild flights of fancy.

1. It was Sergei Eisenstein who said that editing is the only art form native to filmmaking (all its other elements originating in either theatre or photography)

2. See: Lost in La Mancha

3. Aside from Munchausen which reported a record-loss in its day, his last feature, The Grimm Brothers was characterized by the sort of producer-led sabotage the Weinstein brothers are famous for. It's not a very good film and I don't quite understand what the intent was behind it - but that's another story. I'm a champion of Gilliam but I won't stop short of staring at Grimm suspiciously.

Crime wave

M is for Miscellany

Disparate notes for today...

First, this blog has hit (and since surpassed) 10,000 visits. I waited until there were at least a few hundred over the mark as I'm sure a lot are due to me being paranoid about spelling/grammar/formatting mistakes. Hoorah for me and, once again, a big vote of thanks to all of you who have passed through - particularly those who leave comments.

Secondly, photographs. Yeah...not many of them lately, huh? The answer is simple: no time, but certainly not for lack of interest and passion. Mind you, this autumn (Toronto at least) has been cold, grey, and wet - generally miserable for a season and a region known for some of the most beautiful autumn vistas in the world. In other words, even if I had the time, my output would've been slim (and if not, reflecting the dreary outdoors we've experienced since October began). I promise to publish some in the near future, even if they are not "fresh" (which is usually my preference). Thankfully, the forecast for today called for a high of 16 Celsius; I'm hoping we'll have at least a month remaining of the autumn I've come to know, before the snow hits.

Thirdly, still reading Wittgenstein (book review forthcoming). I must say, there are great swaths of it that are about as easy to peruse as electrical schematics. Punishingly arithmetical. Yet, like the sun glimmering through clouds, here and there I happen upon oases of potent contemplation:

5.6 The limits of my language mean the limits of my world

Suck on that for a toothache, eh? Still, after this book I'm going to need an antidote - at this rate Anne of Green Gables will do.

UPDATE (02/11/06): It's bloody 6 degrees outside...with a wind from the lake no less. Please disregard what I wrote about "hoping to have a balmy autumn". Christ.

Agnostic Affront

Back when I had free time (ha ha...sigh) I came across a neat little site/feature called StumbleUpon. Essentially, it allows users to add websites they like to the StumbleUpon aggregated index, which is sorted by topics. You can then "stumble" through the sites of any selected subject(s) of interest using a browser extension button that sits on your toolbar. Each time you press it, you move on to the next random website which matches the content that interests you. As a StumbleUpon user, you can rate websites on your own and add them to the aggregated content available to other users.

It's a nice idea, however I was troubled by how the topics were gathered. Some of this, I admit, was for aesthetic or personal reasons - for example, I rather object to the separate topics "Liberal Politics" and "Conservative Politics" (under "Society"); I mean, really - are beliefs that easy to categorize? I know people who, for instance, claim to be left-of-centre but support NAFTA (if only because they work for companies that profit from the arrangement). My point being that political thought - like everything substantial - is inherently complex; if we choose to have supplied to us only the information we want to see (as opposed to a variety of differing viewpoints), our minds will turn to soggy cereal. Politics isn't like music appreciation where one could be excused for only collecting mid-80's Art Rock - our individual tastes in music won't collectively affect society; however, when political information becomes individualised to the point of being cocooning, the result, I fear, is a mind which is incapable of seeing the larger picture, even if the whole picture may never be clear to us.

Anyhow... amongst other topics I selected, I chose the following, under Religion: Atheist/Agnostic.

First off, I thought it a bit odd that they would group these together, if only because there were no listed Religions that had been treated as such. Wicca was separated from Paganism for Christ's sake. Anyhow, I squinted and pushed forward. What came about as I browsed disturbed me to no end...

But first, a fact: I'm agnostic ¹.

...anyhow, what came about as I browsed disturbed me to no end: atheists were assholes. I do not mean Atheists (or atheists) in general, but - for the most part - the ones with websites proclaiming their atheism were overbearing assholes. Which I find hilarious.

The "proud atheist" sites (and I couldn't come across any that didn't fall into this category ²) almost uniformly included the following:

1. Terribly disrespectful things to say about organized religion.
   
2. Quotes from Einstein.
   

My first response was: leave Einstein out of this ³. My second response was: if these atheists were so enlightened, having supposedly thrown off the shackles of organized religion, why were they so evidently obsessed with religion as to put their refutations front and centre on a freaking website? It seemed so bizarre and irrational to see this in people who, supposedly more than any other person, espoused the rational above all else. Judging from this consistency, I can only conclude that the louder the atheist the more insecure they seemed to me. Further, as opposed to us agnostic types, atheists as a whole seemed unable to live comfortably without religion - as either a catalyst or muse.

This tangent takes me back to what I originally wanted to say: agnosticism is not atheism. Not by any stretch of the imagination. So why the hell would StumbleUpon group them together...yet find it necessary to separate Wicca from Paganism ⁴? I have no clue, and I've written to them to ask that they separate the two - or at the very least remove them as a subset of Religion.

Please fulfill my sense of irony by rating this article on StumbleUpon.

1. I'm not going to spend hours trying to define what agnosticism is or what it means to me. Let's just say that I consider it the most sensible choice for me. If you would like a dictionary definition, try here.

2. This pertains solely to what StumbleUpon provided - this was not a self-directed attempt.

3. Why does everyone with a point to prove turn to Einstein?

4. Instead of making the former a subset of the latter.

Wheel of Fire

We live in a society which thinks fortune is synonymous with providence.

Fortune is just fate, marketed well. Fate is a spinning wheel, capriciously objective and favouring no one.

Look at those lottery winners who find themselves bankrupt because they pissed away their winnings on stupid things: flying their friends to Vegas, buying cars for family members. If that's fortune, then I'm happy it doesn't visit me often.

As for providence - providence is for those who treat fate with respect, like fire.

Thoughts on Truth & Medium

I've been reading Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Intimidating little book. Seems to be written in its own language: cold fucking logic. Still, there are some fascinating ideas relating to how we choose to define the world around us. It's easy to see how revolutionary this book may have been for some people, as concepts of truth and falsity take a back-seat to the greater question of a proper logical confine for the philosophy itself - in doing so, Wittgenstein is saying that the structure of a philosophy is greater than the veracity of its content.

Gleaning from this, I couldn't help but be reminded of Marshall McLuhan's ¹ observation, "the medium is the message" (which was also the name of the resulting book he published ²), which seems resonant of Wittgenstein's approach (if not somewhat parallel).

From Tractatus:

3.332 No proposition can say anything about itself, because the propositional sign cannot be contained in itself (that is the "whole theory of types").

3.333 A function cannot be its own argument, because the functional sign already contains the prototype of its own argument and it cannot contain itself.

It would be rather trite to pit Wittgenstein against McLuhan based upon a couple of sentences (foundational though they may be). However, from this discourse I'm curious to take a closer look at what McLuhan was trying to say - I suppose I carry a vain hope of tripping over a Unified Theory.

You know you're part-geek when things like this really interest you. However, I swear, I'm also part-superhero ³.

1. I always get this guy's name mixed up with the guy who created the Sex Pistols (Malcolm McLaren)...if only they were the same person.

2. Although, technically speaking, due to a copy-edit error, the book was first published as The Medium is the Massage. I shit you not.

3. ...as opposed to the Nietzschean concept of the Superman (*chortle*)

Book Review: Moby Dick, by Herman Melville

You may be asking yourself: "Moby Dick, eh? Not exactly current fiction, Mr. Blogger."

No, it's not. But if it's good, it should be read. This is a good book. It's a classic ¹.

Published in 1851 (happy 155th anniversary!), Moby Dick is an originally rendered tale told by Ishmael (whose last name we never know...in fact, we never learn the full names of any of the characters), a young veteran of the merchant marines who longs to find work (and a new life) on a whaling vessel. Naturally, his interests take him to Nantucket, Massachusetts, where he finds a ship waiting to sail - the Pequod. With the help of an exotic tattooed harpooner, Queequeg, he hops aboard willingly, despite the warnings of a street prophet regarding the Pequod's captain - Ahab.

Once aboard and sailing, the narrative eventually inverts from the wide-eyed first-person accounts of the opening to third-person, peppered with Ishmael's astute observations - it's clear from this narrative transformation that Ishmael himself becomes subsumed by his experiences at sea aboard the Pequod, obsessed with the details of her crew and captain, and with the object of their profession: whaling.

The problem begins soon after setting sail; Ahab, a remarkably bleak and forceful figure, announces that - contrary to their practical purpose - they have an ultimate quest ahead: to find and kill the White Whale, Moby Dick. This single whale, we learn, is the burning flame which drives the Pequod's captain to "monomaniacal" ends, Moby Dick having claimed Ahab's leg (and perhaps a part of his soul) on a previous voyage.

As the novel proceeds, the reader is consumed by the everyday life of a whaler at sea: the sometimes savage danger, the simple yet sublime pleasures, and the technologies of the day. Everyone from the sail-mast lookout to the blacksmith, from the cook to the boatsmen who trawl for prey - whales, and most importantly, their precious oil - are drawn in colourful detail. Readers expecting a fast-moving plot line should note that Moby Dick takes great pains to paint the seafarer's life, specifically the dying years of the whaling industry (at least as it existed in its heyday); as such the novel has its peaks and valleys as regards pacing. I refuse to take the "this is an old book so you have to disregard its old style" stance - though it's a masterpiece, its strengths will only be rewarding to those with a little patience.

Moby Dick is probably one of the best-written novels I've read. Melville is a writer's writer; he loves language and is very particular about how he describes the life of his characters without it becoming an academic exercise, nor are the allegorical elements cryptically depicted so as to make reading it in a non-allegorical frame of mind impossible. Take any of Ahab's monologues and read it aloud: you will instantly notice the cadence and perfect shape of the sentences - it's like hearing Shakespeare. The book is rife with symbolism: the ship is the world, the crew its people. Moby Dick itself becomes a symbol of the capricious result of the burgeoning 20th-century-man's fateful need to conquer nature.

I would like to point out that I read the paperback edition, published by Oxford University Press (pictured above). I mention this in particular for two reasons: it's cheap (500+ pages = $10!), and it comes with a handy reference guide at the back to clarify any directly symbolic (Biblical or simply antiquarian) references in the text. Also, there is an Introduction (written by Tony Tanner) which, after you've read the novel ², will give you some insight into some of the mainstream analyses of the book. There is also a set of letters Melville wrote to Nathaniel Hawthorne (to whom the novel was dedicated) at the back of this edition - can't say there's anything relevatory there, other than the fact that Melville clearly idolised Hawthorne.

Moby Dick is available for sale at a fine independent bookstore near you and online at...Powell's, Amazon, Chapters, and others. Published by Oxford University Press (ISBN: 0192833855)

1. I don't mean "It's a classic." in the sense that, because everyone calls certain books "classics" that they must always be superior. Some "classics" do not age well. This is not one of those.

2. This is my guide to reading "classic" books: by all means avoid anything written by someone other than the original author until after you've read the book, whether it be an introduction, a foreword, a preface, what have you. Most introductions are academic in nature and worse, full of spoilers. Stanislaw Lem wrote a book, inspired by his distaste for these after-the-fact literary addons. It's called Imaginary Magnitude.

Oh, right - the world

If I've relented from espousing opinions on the world lately, it's because of two things (primarily):

1. The world is nuts.


2. Too many people are trying to make sense of #1

Let me qualify this...well, actually no. No, I don't think it's necessary to qualify either of these. This isn't a formal academic essay.

Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose work I've found myself inexplicably drawn to lately, believed that the role of philosophy wasn't to change the world, but rather to articulate it ¹. I've played with this aphorism for quite a while, objectively and personally; while not conclusive, I suspect it applies to more than just philosophy.

Music, calculus, meditation...essentially, the Big Three ² : Art, Science, and Religion.

I suppose what I'm getting at (as I type this on borrowed time, with little sleep, on an old laptop, knowing that at any minute someone's going to drop the proverbial Anvil of Stress on my head) is that rather than having a Romantic notion that the world needs to be changed, perhaps we should focus primarily on expressing what exactly it is first, unwieldy though it may be. We can't even start to explain what the world is (and thus, life) without starting from the beginning: how we individually see it, how we individually live our lives, and the extent to which our individual morals and ethics weigh our actions. Let's face it, if we can't articulate these foundational (and certainly more practical) questions then the world, try as we might to change it, will most likely turn and laugh in our face...or just walk by, carrying shopping bags, without looking (in Toronto, anyway).

Instead of trying to ram our passions down the throats of others ³ in the (rather selfish) hope that everyone's life will change as a result of our unbottled wisdom, what if we changed our approach? What if, instead of proselytizing, we simply worked on articulating ourselves as well as possible (as if that wasn't formidable enough)? I would argue that a well-conceived, original articulation of an individual point of view would have a much better chance of affecting our environment in the long term than all the thunder and plunder of what essentially boils down to a Crusade To Make The World Understand The Way [place name here] Sees It.

It's funny that, when the emphasis of our philosophical passions are changed from "tell it like it is" to "tell your story well", you wind up with less fire and brimstone (ie outrage) and a greater sense of awareness.

1. Michael Dummet, "Vagueness: A Reader", Edited by Rosanna Keefe and Peter Smith, (essay: Wang's paradox, pg.100), MIT Press 2002

2. (articulated previously here)

3. (boy, could this sentence be misconstrued)

Photo: #9 (Jax Beach Reflected)

...and that was the summer

Summer '06, we hardly knew thee.

Actually, I'm lying. I vividly recall it: hot, humid, and busy. Regarding the latter, you will probably note that I've not been posting much lately. This is due to ending my full-time position and going freelance; I have so much to wrap up by Friday, it makes my head spin thinking about it...and then I start another production next week.

However, blog content is coming. Just as air molecules oscillate between compression and rarefaction, it is during those periods where I'm not blogging that I'm able to source the features, take the photos, read the books, and live a life that will inevitably find itself reflected here.

I should make a t-shirt that reads:

I'm not prodigous, just quality-conscious.

Doesn't really have a zing to it though. *sigh* Another project to tinker with...

Photo: #15

Profile: Yukio Mishima

It's hard to discuss mercurial writer, playwright Yukio Mishima (January 14, 1925 -— November 25, 1970) without the spectre of his demise casting a pall on the dialogue.

From Wikipedia (edited for conciseness):

On November 25, 1970, Mishima and four cohorts visited the commandant of the Ichigaya Camp - the Tokyo headquarters of the Eastern Command of Japan's Self-Defense Forces. Once inside, they proceeded to barricade the office and tied the commandant to his chair. With a prepared manifesto and banner listing their demands, Mishima stepped onto the balcony to address the gathered soldiers below. His speech was intended to inspire them to stage a coup d'etat and restore the Emperor to his rightful place. He succeeded only in irritating them and was mocked and jeered. As he was unable to make himself heard, he finished his planned speech after only a few minutes. He stepped back into the commandant's office and committed seppuku (ritual suicide).

Now that's an exit.

The full story on Mishima is complex and troubling: a sheltered child raised by a temperamental and artistocratic grandmother (who came from a samurai bloodline), only to return at the age of 12 to his parents. His father was a strict disciplinarian and it is suggested that his relationship with his mother bordered on incestuous.

Writing in secret (so that his father wouldn't find out), Mishima's stories focused on recurring themes of death, obsession, dishonour, and the consequences of unexamined emotions.

Mishima was gay, yet paradoxically (considering the society he inhabited) became obsessed with martial arts and militaristic self-discipline.

Of his more popular works is The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea. The novel takes place in post-WWII Japan and concerns the blooming love between a sailor on-leave and a wealthy industrialist whose son is part of a devilishly manipulative cabal of disaffected local children.

His critically-praised work includes the semi-autobiographical Confessions of a Mask and the fiction tetralogy Sea of Fertility. Mishima submitted the final draft of the fourth novel in the series, The Decay of the Angel, to his publisher on the same fateful day he and his colleagues would drive to the military school.

Having read a selection of his work (Confessions, Sailor, and the short story collection Acts of Wisdom), it's clear that Mishima was an individual tortured by his own demons. One may argue he was born into a society which could never support his dynamic shape. His narrative style is poetic and sensual, though often critical of society and soaked with the tragedy of characters misdirected by love and self-discipline. Beautiful though they are, Mishima's stories are often dark and painful. It's for this reason I would be lying if I said I read his work regularly - though I wouldn't hesitate to describe them as rewarding (if not seminal) works for the fiction reader.

If you're curious about Yukio Mishima - and while I would not call it a definitive example - you may want to check out Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, a film by Paul Schrader (who wrote Taxi Driver). It blends the story of his untimely death with lusciously visual renderings of some of his short stories.

To want to be alive

You have to lose
You have to learn how to die
if you want to want to be alive
- Wilco, "War on War"

I had this song going through my head all weekend, the last weekend of my vacation (and sorry for the lack of updates recently). It's probably one of the best songs I've heard in such a very long time. Like Guided By Voices' "Game of Pricks" and Roxy Music's "Mother of Pearl", it's one of those tracks that I have to listen to again and again and again because somewhere in it is a phenomenal beauty that is as elusive as it is sublime.

It's uplifting but with a hurt core - the capitulation that "you have to learn how to die if you [...] want to be alive". I've been coming to terms with this theme over the last while, admittedly transposing it onto something it probably was never intended to be ¹.

After four-and-a-half years, I gave notice today that I was leaving my full-time job. Steady pay, benefits, desk - gone, so that I can work as a freelancer.

Without going into sordid detail, I felt the need/want/desire to leave, but for the longest time I was paralyzed with fear about going freelance. This in spite of the fact I often came home despondant...that it was harder to write/revise my fiction when the best chunk of the day was spent in a chaotic environment...that with every passing week I felt I was missing out on a different yet possible life.

I don't believe there is any more effective way to conquer a fear than doing so knowing that failure is also a possibility. You have to float on a raft to get over your fear of water. The chance of failure must be present, otherwise all you can achieve is a virtual success - in which case you might as well play a video game simulation of it rather than tackle the real thing. Playing blackjack against a computer will allow you to learn about the rules of blackjack (and probability mathematics) - it will not prepare you at all for a table full of experienced players in Vegas staring at you like a idiot because you've never had to deal with intimidation.

In other words, you must be prepared for the chance that, no, things may not go well. That is, after all, the way life works: at the dawn of time mankind signed no such contract which promised we would die unbruised. So, if an amount failure is inevitable (whether it be due to chance or fault) the best you can do is inform yourself as much as possible before taking any big leaps. The rest is going to happen whether you intended it to happen or not.

I needed more flexibility in my life. More freedom to do what I want without collaborating with a single entity that could never realistically put my needs before its own. Now the responsibility is mine: I can't blame anyone anymore if things don't pan out. However, I can tell you, in facing the unknown there is something very, very liberating.

1. I think it's wrong for there to be a finite explanation of what any song "means", however I also feel protective of songs whose themes are misconstrued/manipulated by others.

Hey - thanks.

Hello all,

I've passed the 50-post mark without much fanfare (I'm saving it for the 100^th), and I don't see Imaginary Magnitude hitting the 10,000 visitor-mark for another couple of months - however I thought I'd just say hello and thanks to all the people who pass-through, whether via BlogMad, StumbleUpon, or any of the myriad ways people find their way here.

This site gets visitors from across the globe - here's the latest 100-visitor sample:

Sure, a little Ameri-centric, but every visitor counts.

What surprises/impresses me in particular is the number of people who spend more than an hour actually reading the articles I write (either that or staring at the pretty photos...or maybe they just fell asleep and didn't log-off). From the same sampling, here's the breakdown:

That's 17.7% of people spending over an hour here.

On this note, if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know. More photos? More essays? More article/book reviews? Less? Go home? Your blog sucks? Let me know.

Photo: Kurt Weill Sunset

Article/Review: Digital Maoism, by Jaron Lanier

[from the I Wanted To Write About This Article a Month Ago Department]:

Jaron Lanier is a contributor and member of edge.org ¹ (which I have listed in my sidebar links). Specifically, he offers his perspective on the evolution of technology and the internet and is credited as a "computer scientist and digital visionary". In an essay posted May 30th, Digital Maoism: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism, he tackles the rise of aggregator/meta-centric portals such as Wikipedia (which I also have listed in my sidebar links), where individual contribution he argues (and to this extent, responsibility) is obscured by an emphasis on a hive mind approach.

Lanier starts, appropriately enough, by sharing the fact that his Wikipedia entry refers to him as a film director, which is truthful only to the extent that he made one film, a decade and a half earlier. "Every time my Wikipedia entry is corrected," he begins, "within a day I'm turned into a film director again. I can think of no more suitable punishment than making these determined Wikipedia goblins actually watch my one small old movie."

And with this he sets his target. It isn't, he insists, Wikipedia itself:

"No, the problem is in the way the Wikipedia has come to be regarded and used; how it's been elevated to such importance so quickly. And that is part of the larger pattern of the appeal of a new online collectivism that is nothing less than a resurgence of the idea that the collective is all-wise, that it is desirable to have influence concentrated in a bottleneck that can channel the collective with the most verity and force. This is different from representative democracy, or meritocracy. This idea has had dreadful consequences when thrust upon us from the extreme Right or the extreme Left in various historical periods. The fact that it's now being re-introduced today by prominent technologists and futurists, people who in many cases I know and like, doesn't make it any less dangerous."

Lanier's strongest point, as I see it, is his contention that the collectivist, hive-driven format of sites such as Wikipedia (and extended in his essay to meta-meta-meta aggregators such as Digg and Reddit) continue a troubling trend toward aggregated, impersonally edited content over... well, content curated and written by identifiable humans.

"The race began innocently enough with the notion of creating directories of online destinations, such as the early incarnations of Yahoo. Then came AltaVista, where one could search using an inverted database of the content of the whole Web. Then came Google, which added page rank algorithms. Then came the blogs, which varied greatly in terms of quality and importance. This lead to Meta-blogs such as Boing Boing, run by identified humans, which served to aggregate blogs. In all of these formulations, real people were still in charge. An individual or individuals were presenting a personality and taking responsibility.

[...]

"In the last year or two the trend has been to remove the scent of people, so as to come as close as possible to simulating the appearance of content emerging out of the Web as if it were speaking to us as a supernatural oracle. This is where the use of the Internet crosses the line into delusion."

Lanier's line of query unfolds to include the observation that the "meta" is now more popular and, in respect to Google News, more profitable than traditional media (newspapers in particular), yet no one standing next to the microphone is able to articulate the fact that popularity contests do not historically vet the best, but rather, what the collective believes is safest. And of course, nobody seems to want to say that the collective is just as culpable - in some ways more powerfully culpable - as individuals.

I highly suggest anyone interested in the social internet, its architecture and direction, give this essay a good read. Lanier's observations move from the immediate suspects above to commentary on analogous movements, such as Linux ², the "open" software movement, and the ever-ubiquitous MySpace. In many respects, it's about time somebody spoke eloquently about the collapse of the human face behind these efficient portals.

However, I do have some issues. For one thing, the tangents never really weave into a comprehensive whole, making it feel much too cumbersome (and a page too long) to concisely support Lanier's provocative thesis. There are many arguments using the financial marketplace as a comparison tool which, although in theory an applicable analogy, is probably the last example I would use if I were arguing for a more humanistic approach. In fact, for someone arguing for this approach, Lanier's language sometimes bares the same technocratic opaqueness which I would argue obscures a better understanding of the debate.

For example, leading to his summary:

"Empowering the collective does not empower individuals — just the reverse is true. There can be useful feedback loops set up between individuals and the hive mind, but the hive mind is too chaotic to be fed back into itself."

I realise the term "feedback loop" is an applicable simile when discussing communication, but it's disconcerting when a term normally applied to specialty occupations - namely, software programming and audio engineering - should somehow become the standard upon which we seek to inspire a better world. Is this not, to some extent, asking a less-predictable society to be like a more-predictable tool?

Please read the essay for yourself and feel free to share your feedback in the comments section.

Please note: there is a discourse on the essay on the edge.org site here.

1. From their site: "Edge Foundation, Inc., was established in 1988 as an outgrowth of a group known as The Reality Club. Its informal membership includes of some of the most interesting minds in the world. The mandate of Edge Foundation is to promote inquiry into and discussion of intellectual, philosophical, artistic, and literary issues, as well as to work for the intellectual and social achievement of society."

2. There is no official site for "Linux" (outside of linux.org, which looks exactly as it was when first uploaded many, many years ago...and no this is not a compliment). The link I provided goes to Ubuntu, which is the flavour of Linux I use at home. There are others.

Jacksonville, Florida

I will be going to Jacksonville, Florida in August. If anyone can suggest anything reasonably cool to do while I'm visiting (art, life, vibe sorta stuff) please let me know.

I've been there before, so I already have some impressions.

Perhaps not the world's most exciting spot, but I'm willing to believe that I've been blinded by bland insurance company skyscrapers and haven't truly seen what is there to behold (if only to find a place to drink and chill).

Any guidance is appreciated.

Photo: Bellwoods Place #15

Comment: There is nothing inherently masturbatory about film

Eric Bogosian wrote in 1995 :

It's a truism to say that movies, TV and canned music are all dead media. In fact, they are machine-made. Might as well have electrodes sunk into my gray matter as a pair of headphones and some house music. Now, don't get me wrong. I like a blasting boom-box as much as I love jerking off and I'd be sad if I couldn't slink into a refrigerated movie theater in the middle of a hot, stinking New York afternoon and sedate my self with greasey [sic] salted corn while watching illuminated photos of people killing each other.

But it's all dead. Which is to say, un-unique. Every one the same as the other. The movie (or TV show or record) is the same whether I'm there or not. That's why it's like porno as opposed to sex. Good theater is like having sex. It's different depending on who you're with.

I originally read this in a newspaper article, though paraphrased more succinctly: theatre is like sex while film is like masturbation.

So as to not give the impression that I've withheld a decade's worth of disagreement, this is not the first time a theatre actor has publicly pissed on filmmaking (in general, no less) whilst implying theatre as sacrosanct. More recently, a local theatre actor with a sizeable list of TV/film roles had done the same in a local weekly. And every time someone takes this approach it's hard not to view them as precious ideologues.

Arguments like this are easy to make, especially when you opt to side-step the reality of that which you are criticizing. To be fair (some may say too fair), I like to think Bogosian was championing theatre (specifically New York's scene) as opposed to condemning film, seeing as he was distressed at the brain-drain occurring at the time (and I'm sure continuing to this day).

The truth is that there is nothing inherently masturbatory about film or filmmaking, or at the very least the threshold is no greater than in - dare I say it - theatre. If I may borrow Bogosian's turn of phrase, it's a truism that there is more to filmmaking than the inflated mediocrity we see passing through our cinemas on their way to the DVD shelf. How difficult would it be for anyone to use the same argument about theatre: Mama Mia, anyone? Is it fair to base an argument about theatre on Tarzan? Truth is, every artistic medium has its share of sequined fluff and it is patently unfair to point to the worst (or, in the case of LA, the home of the worst) for validation. It's an argument which ignores the power (abetted, I argue, by actors also) of such a wide array and long history of great filmmaking that tallying a list (as I've attempted for the last 20 minutes) seems as asinine as Bogosian's comment.

Every artist works with the bells of his pursuit's downfall ringing in the background. This is part of the very thing which pushes artists to do their best work: namely, being pissed-off (or, depending upon your local caste system, "outraged"). Being pissed-off gives us the plays, films, and yes - television - we as a society need to have around us (if not to watch). So, if Bogosian was simply sounding a pro-theatre rallying cry, I can understand. What I can't understand is when reasonably intelligent people denigrate perfectly analogous pursuits for sake of expressing their petty love of another.

Photo: Bellwoods Place #13

Forging on (he says)

It's difficult to maintain a positive perspective when it seems you are book-ended by sirens of madness on one side and the encroachment of useless bullshit on the other. It makes one consider the benefits of a solitary agrarian lifestyle; unfortunately, that's not in the cards for me. Firstly, most solitary agrarians are often too invested in their solitude (and their agrarianism) to even stop and contemplate their identity - after all, occupational lifestyles such as "solitary agrarian" tend to come naturally to people. I admit I may have missed that boat. Secondly, I simply wouldn't trust anyone who identified him/herself as a solitary agrarian ("Take the chip off your shoulder, hippy." my inner pub-crawling bully yells out - let's call him Sully. Truth be known, he yells a lot).

It's hard being an artist ¹ when you're surrounded by a stream of people who also call themselves artists, not necessarily because they are or that what they do is particularly outstanding, but rather because it doesn't make your situation any easier. When you were a kid, an Artist was some sort of hallowed currency - you imagined they were raised on Easter Island by alpacas and shipped to the New World via hovercraft.² Well, they're not. I suppose it's good that they're not, as I'm sure someone would've raped and pillaged them long, long ago, Viking-like. To that end, I'm thankful the world doesn't have to contend with a breed of sullen warrior sub-artists from Easter Island.

In the inner universe of the artist, "I" is the loneliest word. But let's come back to this.

On the extreme opposite of the universe, far, far away from the tiny satellite of "I" is "you".³ You, as in, not-the-artist. Sure, you could be "an artist" also, but it really doesn't matter. For all you know, they're nothing like you...or I, sorry. Bloody pronouns.

Right, let's come back to "I". Lonely word blah blah blah. Rudolf Steiner saw no difference between Art, Religion, and Science. In his eyes, they all dealt with the same conflict ⁴: bridging the chasm of understanding between the I and the not-I. Let's face it - everything around us is not us, and yet it is, and yet it's not. I have no relationship to the CBC Visitor sticker that I have stuck to the wall in front of me - it is, after all, a piece of sticky paper. Yet, it's an encapsulation of one of various meetings/sessions I've had at the broadcaster, which is tied to what I do for a living, which is somehow (sometimes depressingly) tied to who I am. There is a constant conflict between the inner and outer world and it is the job of the Artist, the Philosopher, and the Scientist to ask fundamental questions in order to better define this relationship. I suppose I could've picked a better example than a sticker, yes (Sully laughs in the background, a pint of Guinness in his hand, leaning back on his barstool, smoking a cigarette as only fictitious inner pub-crawling bullies can do in light of Toronto's recent smoking by-laws).

Every artist has to realise that they are, ultimately, alone. You can be part of a collective, you can have a gaggle of supporters, you can own an over-priced bar named Camera, but in the end it's your inner voice that expresses itself and not the sum of your distractions, be they good or bad. The environment - the "not I" - can inspire art, but it doesn't create art in and of itself. At best, in the Artist's World, the "not I" is a muse that we toy with, fight against, woo, or plunder jealously for material. But in the end, you're on your own.

I'm an unpublished writer (when I withdraw various insubstantial exploits: a College Street community newspaper that never got past Issue #1/Volume #1, a poem I wrote in high school that was somehow allowed in the Burlington Post, and various letters to the Globe and Mail), yet despite that, I'm not unaccomplished. This is the fine line: knowing the difference between a lack of commercial success and a lack of personal accomplishment. We tend to equate the two as synonymous, yet one is inherently more substantial than the other. I look back at the last five or six years and I say to myself ("Self...") that I've accomplished a lot (a novel, numerous short stories, countless poetry) - it's only been in the last year that I've begun to seriously aim for commercial success. I would rather be in this situation now than have peaked early (when I knew less about myself as a person and a writer) and withered, as most early-peakers do. Success is not a race, or at least that's what I tell myself when I feel I'm going nowhere.

The key is to forge on, and whether that requires optimism, humour, or even distilled anger is up to the individual. The common-sensical answer would be: whatever it takes.⁵

As for me today, I might just join Sully for a pint.

Footnotes:

1. I use the term "artist" in its general context. I do not specifically mean visual artists, although they are obviously part of the category. I just can't speak for them.

2. Hovercrafts. What kind of brilliant magic was that? Weren't they the coolest things ever made by mankind when you were a kid? Christ, give me a place with hovercrafts and moving sidewalks and I'm buying real estate.

3. This is assuming a finite universe which could contain opposite sides (which obviously wouldn't be possible if there was no end or beginning).

4. Conflict is, in retrospect, a slightly dramatic term - but I'm a slightly dramatic person.

5. The artistic process is just as important as the artistic product; it would be dangerous to focus on one to the exclusion of the other - you'd either be left with a industrious stream of mediocrity or constipated with directionless obsession. And you thought artists had it easy.

Photo: M5V Wall

Note: semi-hiatus

So, yes, I've not posted in a while.

Due to a hectic work schedule over the next month, combined with World Cup 2006, I won't be posting very often. God knows I have plenty of articles to post, plenty of ideas, and plenty of things to discuss. The only problem is that I have no time.

Keep tuning in - I shall be back.

(photo from fifaworldcup.com)

Book Review: The Unconscious Civilization, by John Ralston Saul

As mentioned previously, House of Anansi recently re-released their acclaimed CBC Massey Lectures series. This news is a significant boon to the reader who values provocative, intelligent discussion which often straddles the fine line between social anthropology and philosophy. Having been pleasantly surprised with Doris Lessing's Prisons We Choose to Live Inside (reviewed previously here), I picked-up John Ralston Saul's The Unconscious Civilization with hesitant interest - I say hesitant because I'm already well-acquainted with his work.

I was first introduced to Ralston Saul many years ago with his book Voltaire's Bastards (ISBN 9780140153736). I was impressed with his bold and thoroughly-referenced perspective on what he contends is the growing paralysis of Western civilisation throughout history. However, in retrospect, this was probably the wrong book to start with; for one thing, it's about 656 (trade paperback) pages which, considering his dense style and cogent analysis, makes for a bit of a brain slog. Nonetheless, I followed this with the successive releases of Confessions of a Siamese Twin (ISBN 9780140259889), his treatise on Canadian social/political identity, and On Equilibrium (ISBN 9780140288032), his elaboration on six foundational aspects of civilization.

I wish now that I had first read The Unconscious Civilization.

Clocking-in at a comparably svelte 205 pages, Unconscious Civilization finds Ralston Saul boiling down the magnum opus that was Voltaire's Bastards into something much more approachable for the average reader without filing down its fangs. The thesis is partially revealed in the Preface, written for the 10th anniversary re-release:

When I wrote these Massey Lectures, I was convinced they would cause a shock. After all, I was describing the state of the West in a manner quite off the radar screen. I was saying there had been a persistent growth of corporatism in spite of the outcome of the last world war. And that this growth continued. Why would this be shocking? Because corporatism was part of the anti-democratic underpinnings of Fascist Italy in particular, but also of Nazi Germany. Beneath the uniforms and the military ambitions and the dictatorial leadership and the racism lay corporatism. It was the intellectual foundation of fascism. And it was supposed to have been destroyed along with both regimes in 1945.

So, it's not exactly light reading. Throughout history though, concepts and arguments that heed us to re-evaluate our surroundings (whether or not we end up holding fast to them) are often dissonant to our day-to-day perspective on life - in other words, controversy often ensues difference. Ralston Saul is unafraid to call a spade a spade.

The Unconscious Civilization lays out in dense, history-shifting references, the problems and origins of corporatism and how it has become an increasingly acceptable means to run modern societies, in spite of its history of stifling democracy and rewarding conformism.

One of the key points made is how one can propose to adjudicate the underlying strength of any given society - that is, asking: where does its legitimacy lie? He proposes that this legitimacy lies in one of four areas: God, a king, groups, or civilian individuals working as a whole. While the history of Western society has largely been influenced by the former two, Ralston Saul feels that we are most certainly in the hands of groups: think-tanks, specialists, and managers.

The corporatist model, he argues, in the tradition of the Catholic Church, is obsessed with God and Destiny - albeit transposed onto contemporary concerns such as the trade markets and privatisation of public interests. Corporatist language is thus cloaked in a similar sense of inevitability and sycophantic awe that the Church used to instill fear and hold power over the populace.

Although the density of Ralston Saul's arguments is impressive (in particular, his contention that Jung and Freud allowed the posterity of their work to fall victim to an inarticulated obsession with mythology) , I feel it's this same quality that weighs down the over-arching themes of the book. At points, particularly with his repeated references to Athens in the days of Socrates, I longed for the simple first-person perspective that gave Doris Lessing's Prisons We Choose To Live Inside its sprightliness and pactical immediacy. At times, Unconscious Civilization buckles under the considerable thickness of its content, which makes me wonder what the average reader will take away from it (without re-reading).

However, this doesn't change the fact that this is powerful stuff. Not content to only point out what's wrong with society, his last chapter is dedicated to thinking towards solutions. In particular, I found great interest in his contention that the public school system is out of step with the lifestyle changes over the last 20 years - as people are set to retire later and later, would it not make sense for children to enter into school later and then be required to receive a more complete education than the current system which is only concerned about cranking out specialists for the marketplace? Ralston Saul also delves into his equilibrium theory, to which he devoted a book in 2002, in which he postulates that individuals and society alike must work to remain balanced rather than hyper-focused on any one quality, in particular rationality, which has been used to justify abuses throughout history.

I would not hesitate to suggest this book to anyone interested in challenging views of society in general, and Ralston Saul's ideas in particular. For the latter, The Unconscious Civilization is the ultimate primer. For the former, you will undoubtably find yourself spending a great deal of time wrestling with its well-researched and sometimes scathing message.

The Unconscious Civilization is available for sale at a fine independent bookstore near you and online at House of Anansi Press, as well as...Powell's, Amazon, Chapters. Published by House of Anansi Press (ISBN: 0-88784-586X)

Photo: #34

Media Linguistics: What the hell?

I was reading the following post on CNN (from Reuters news service):

------

Kenya's first lady: Abstain, don't use condoms

Risks anger of anti-AIDS activists in her counsel to young people

NAIROBI, Kenya (Reuters) -- Kenyan first lady Lucy Kibaki risked the wrath of anti-AIDS campaigners by advising young people against using condoms, saying they should practice abstinence instead.

------

However, I have to ask: what the hell is an "anti-AIDS activist"? Furthermore, an "anti-AIDS campaigner"?

Aside from the story itself (which is troubling enough), why does Reuters insist on using this ridiculous terminology?

In a similar story on a cholera outbreak in Angola, I see no reference to groups such as Medecins Sans Frontieres or the World Health Organisation being "anti-cholera activists". Why? Because it's bloody obvious that the distinction isn't necessary, unless of course I'm wrong and there is a burgeoning tide of "pro-cholera" and "pro-AIDS" campaigners in our midst*.

Particularly considering how tragically difficult it is to stabilise the AIDS epidemic in certain parts of the world (via basic medicine and education), there's no need to further complicate the matter with ridiculous qualifiers such as "anti-AIDS" - it only serves to compound an already embattled cause.

* (conceivably, any politician who supports abstinence alone as a means of battling AIDS is probably the closest thing to a "pro-AIDS campaigner" as we're likely to see)

Cinema in Toronto: Three Rep Theatres to Close

I was shocked to receive word that three of the most venerable rep cinemas in Toronto are about to close their doors at the end of June: The Royal (at College & Clinton Sts.), The Revue (on Roncesvalles), and The Kingsway (Bloor W.).

Excerpt from the Toronto Star:

The theatres — part of the Festival Cinemas group — were owned by cinema entrepreneur Peter McQuillan, who died in October 2004.

Last night, his son Mark told the Star that he and his two siblings made the decision to close the theatres reluctantly.

"The heart and soul was my father. Since (his death), we have been trying our best to run (the business).

"But we don't have the time, the energy and the financial wherewithal to keep it going," said McQuillan, noting difficult market conditions contributed to their decision.

"I feel bad if they are closing. We might get a few more customers but I don't know what it says for the industry," said Carmelo Bordonaro, owner of the Bloor Cinema.

"It's a labour of love, these cinemas, believe me — a lot of hard work," Bordonaro said. [read more]

It's not hard to imagine how daunting a task it would be to run a rep cinema, even in a city as film/film-festival crazy as Toronto.

Film projectors in theatres are going to be cultural fossils within the next 5 years as the industry moves towards digital distribution. Film itself will probably be relegated to a shooting format only (alongside HD).

Yet...aside from being able to cheaply watch the latest films after their official theatrical run (they gotta make money after all), rep theatres are the ones that are able to show us - on film - works of the great filmmakers that came before us; the ones that painted our current cinematic archetypes. Soon, I realise, if you want to see anything by Kurosawa, Bergman, Tarkovsky, or Welles - it will have to be on DVD.

Of course, there are still a few rep cinemas left: The Bloor, The Paradise, The Fox...however, who knows how many years they have left? Pretty soon the Cinematheque will be the only one; a museum for film.

May I suggest that, if you live in downtown Toronto, you make a trek to one of these fleeting oases before they cease operations. Buy cheap popcorn, put up with dilapidated seats and sticky floors, and enjoy films as they were meant (or hoped) to be seen.

Photo: #6 (Old Montreal)

Blog: Safari issues

A quick note that yesterday I checked out this blog using Safari...and nearly screamed. While the content appears fine (formatting etc.), the sidebar data is pretty scrambled. In detail:

1. The orange category tags beneath the profile photo do not appear at all.
2. The previous articles are not in list format, but placed side-by-side in a paragraph.
3. My copyright info footer is in the sidebar when it should be at the bottom of the page.

I'm sure there's more, and I'm looking into it. However, to be honest, having worked on HTML formatting before I realise that sometimes you can't please every web browser. So far, this blog looks consistent in the latest versions of Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, and Konqueror. The fact that Safari is having rendering issues is something I'd like to address, but quite frankly I can't promise much of anything for the immediate future.

If you're unsure whether you're seeing this blog properly, below is an image of how it should look (taken from Firefox) - it shows at least the first half of the page for reference. I don't want to be a browser fascist, but I would recommend that, if you currently use Safari, consider switching to Firefox (or Opera).



If you use Safari and don't notice any issues, please let me know. Cheers.

UPDATE (May 17/06): I believe it's safe to say that the above only applies to those people running Safari v1.x - I was checking the site from an old G3 iBook at the time. Anyone running v2.x of Safari shouldn't experience any substantial incompatibilities. Carry on.

Darfur - A Range of Opinion

You know you're looking at a real-life problem (as opposed to the more easily-digestible choices portrayed in television dramas...who am I kidding - television news as well) when its tangled complexity clogs the drain of your ability (or desire) to "solve" it.

Take Darfur.

The way in which this conflict is rendered has been a hotly debated topic. A recent analysis showed that, in 2005, the Darfur story was covered for all of 10 minutes on the three major American networks; this would imply that the television-drama ER (in an upcoming episode) will have covered 6 times as much as them...again, in a single episode.

The newsmedia is sometimes the only means a tragedy has of reaching the eyes and senses of those who are too distant to know about them. Speculatively speaking, I have to wonder if some in the newsmedia - the above mentioned networks who all but avoided this situation for years prior - are now reluctant to spotlight it because doing so inherently implicates past apathy. An extreme interpretation, perhaps, but considering the media's tepid hold on our trust - post 9/11 - this seemingly bizarre behaviour is not without recent precedents.

On the topic of how the situation in Darfur has been rendered in the media,Guardian journalist Jonathan Steele, describes in this bloggish-commentary what he calls the Darfur Disconnect:

[...]
Commentators thunder away at the need for sanctions against the regime in Khartoum and denounce western leaders for not authorising Nato to intervene.

Last weekend the outrage took a new turn, with big demonstrations in several American cities, strongly promoted by the Christian right, which sees the Darfur conflict as another case of Islamic fundamentalism on the rampage. They urged Bush to stop shilly-shallying and be tougher with the government of Sudan.

The TV reports are not wrong. They just give a one-sided picture and miss the big story: the talks that the rebels are conducting with the government. The same is true of the commentaries. Why demand military involvement, when western leaders have intervened more productively by pressing both sides to reach a settlement? Over the past few days the US, with British help, has taken over the AU's mediation role, and done it well. Robert Zoellick, the state department's number two, and Hilary Benn, Britain's development secretary, have been in Abuja urging the rebels not to waste the opportunity for peace. Sudan's government accepted the US-brokered draft agreement last weekend, and it is the rebels who have been risking a collapse.

[...]

An interesting, if divisive, point of view. I say divisive because it drags into the debate an almost unnecessary contention that there is some cabal of the (increasingly journalistic cliche) Christian right to portray this as a spectre of Muslim imperialism against Christian Darfurians - the truth of that particular matter is certainly more complex. I can certainly say that the rally I attended in Toronto had no religious overtones or other types of self-investment.

The more salient argument in this excerpt is whether, in pushing for military intervention, NATO/UN forces could unknowingly apply the wrong type of pressure and drive the conflict deeper or perhaps fragment it along ethnic/political lines - in this regard, it's not as if there is a single Darfurian rebel organisation sitting at the negotiation table. There are several - some small, some large, and inevitably one would assume each may have their own agenda.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to spin this into something that it's not - ie obfuscate the conflict to the point where inaction is seen as an option - but rather, I'm trying to see different points of view because I really don't feel we're getting it from the media.

On this note, the CBC is having a Foreign Correspondents Forum on June 1st. They are taking questions from viewers regarding international events/affairs. I've taken the liberty of posing some of the questions raised above. If you would like to do the same (about Darfur or any other area of the world), visit this page for more information.