Too Easy

:) Seemed perfect for a Monday posting...

The back is more interesting on this one...

One of the most excellent experiences in my life was the summer of 2010 when I attended Comic-Con in San Diego. In the course of 3 days, I had one-on-one conversations with Aaron Douglas, Guillermo Del Toro, Dirk Benedict, and Sarah Lancaster; sat in the same room as the television casts of The Big Bang Theory (with special guests The Barenaked Ladies), Sons of Anarchy, Chuck, and The Family Guy; had photos taken with David Hasselhoff, Amanda Tapping, Levar Burton, and Brent Spiner; and watched in awe/listened in adoration as Joss Whedon and JJ Abrams discussed the merits of television story-telling over film-making. Yes, I barely slept and the line-ups & crowds were absolutely crazy but it was an incredible time that I plan on reliving sometime in the future.

But even after I got home, the joy didn't stop. The lovely peeps over at ScriptPhD.com
had a post SDCC contest where they awarded a random Twitter follower a skookum Mythbusters prize package. AND I WON!  Considering the Mythbusters Comic-Con swag bag was the one I dearly wanted (after already obtaining a Big Bang Theory one) but wasn't able to lay hands on legitimately or otherwise during the convention, it truly sealed the deal as the most improbable happy ending for my fairy tale visit to San Diego.  It's almost as if I really did reject all realities except the won in which I won. How cool is that?

My prize pack courtesy of ScriptPhD.com

Sport or Game?

Cards on the table: I can't skate.

In fact, any activity that involves wearing blades or free-spinning wheels is just not my element. Actually, it occurs to me that the unifying factor is the word "skate". Ice skate, roller skate, skateboard... whenever I've had to take part, I've always been thankful for having a resilient and well-padded derriere. Floor hockey, road hockey, field hockey, even broom ball (which IS played on ice but in shoes) I'm okay with. Put me on skates and things get silly fast.

So, in an effort to reclaim my Canadian-ness, I took up curling a few years ago with a group of colleagues from the school. I wasn't terrible. I wasn't great. Our rink had good matches and bad ones. Mostly though, I had a lot fun. I don't know that I got a lot of exercise but I participated however the question arises: Does curling (which basically amounts to lawn bowling on ice) count as a "sport" or  a "game"? 

As played by woodland creatures, I think it's a game

Back of the shirt: I think the bunny is the commentator

Today's shirt was a gift from Kerri, sourced from Threadless (yes, again). 

Crazy-athletic friend, Lesley (note the diplomatically placed hyphen), distinguishes between the labels of sports and games. By her definition, activities like cycling, running, and swimming are "sport"s whereas bowling, darts, and (possibly) curling are "game"s. She kind of expects sport athletes to look the part too so there are a few baseball players that live in the grey zone, taking their genre with them to some extent. Basically, to her, if you have a big gut, you are playing a game, no matter how much you are paid to do so.

So where is the line between sport and game? And does it matter to the spectators? Are there activities that straddle the two?

Stuff That Shirts Are Made Of

Bamboo, in this case. Which is a great t-shirt fabric, btw. 

This was my first Cirque du Soleil shirt, bought in Vancouver at Quidam, I believe.

Attending a live Cirque performance is one of those experiences that can't really be explained to those who haven't been. It's visually spectacular, totally immersive for the senses and taps into the imagination with music, movement and feats of physical prowess. Although there are CDs and DVDs available with which the music and actions can be surveyed, the live performance adds another element that is not captured in any sort of contemporary media.

I've seen Cirque shows in Vancouver, London, Las Vegas, and (most recently) in Montreal this summer, where Lesley and I experimented with whether her toddler could be entranced enough to sit through an entire show. She definitely made friends with some of the performers before the show but seemed determined to join the show. There was a lot of chase and retrieval involved in that particular performance.

Cirque will be back in Vancouver with Amaluna (same show as we saw in Montreal) at the end of this month and, on a whim, I convinced Jeff's mom that she and Jeff's dad should come take a look "at the circus" with us.  Not sure she understands that Cirque shows and circuses are two entirely different things but I'm hoping they all enjoy it.

Pop! Goes the Art

I generally try not to analyze art as I really know nothing about it. Furthermore, I've always harboured a suspicion that, like our taste buds, the rods and cones that detect light and colours fire differently person to person.

"Pop Art", on the other hand, I will claim an appreciation of as I usually understand the "pop" aspect of it and have an admiration for those clever and creative enough to take iconic images and apply new meaning.

My shirt today with from Amanda Palmer's "reclaiming the ukulele" campaign. Not an actual branded campaign but a side product of Palmer's really amazing application of the li'l instrument to all the world's problems. In fact, she's composed and recorded this five and a half minute "Ukulele Anthem" (all the lyrics are on the linked page and def worth a read) wherein this "wand of thunder" can free the repression and save the humanity of our world.

The re-emergence of the British wartime propaganda "Stay Calm and Carry On" slogan has been a bit of commercial pop culture genius really. The chaos of the Second World War is very different from the uncertainty of today's world but the result is frighteningly similar. Stress, fear, anxiety and depression are overwhelming sometimes when taking a good look at where our world is heading. The anxiety my students exhibit is almost physically debilitating and very much an obstacle to learning. Studies show that for some people, just living a day-to-day existence is resulting in symptoms of PTSD. Furthermore, strategies for resilience and relaxation need to be explicitly taught now where they were once naturally stumbled upon by most. And even those of us who are good at self-monitoring for stress levels, need a reminder now and then.

The inside of my front door

So, like Dory in Finding Nemo, we need to "Just keep swimming" and, like Pearl Jam sings...

 "Just Breathe"

My good buddy, and newly-minted hubby and papa, Sonny Assu makes art. In fact, he creates Art. He brings into existence amazing works, in a variety of media, that marry a sense of his past and history with his present-mindedness. He incorporates popularly recognizable images and historically commercial icons in his pieces that address personal and contemporary issues of race, environment, society and governance. Last week, the Vancouver Art Gallery added his work (along with the work of six other "young B.C. artists") to their permanent collection, years after the National Gallery of Canada and the Museum of Anthropology at UBC acquired his work. ;) So it's about freakin' time.

What I really get out of Sonny's accomplishments personally is that his exhibitions remind me that spending time in art galleries can't be rushed. Thanks to his ever-impressive successes, I make time to go and admire and think about the works in the galleries. And, sometimes, when Life feels like the brake-line's been cut, a moment of beauty will make me stop, really STOP, and just breathe it in and hopefully that image will be there later when I need a internal moment of calm.

Splitting Infinitives in the Spirit of Exploration

Well, I said I would so I did. No sightings so far ...

The shirt is a prezzie from Kerri, my intrepid supplier of awesome stuff and eggnog tea, and has been coveted by a couple of different co-workers today.

I enjoy the Trek-verse, growing up watching Next Gen and the Next Gen movies mostly. The bro was more of a DS9 guy. I don't think either of us has ever taken a serious stance on Voyager or Enterprise (although I have an enormous soft spot for Scott Bakula in ANY role...)

Until this summer, I had never taken part in any of the cosplay associated with the franchise but friends of Jeff's were adamant that costumes were a REQUIREMENT for admission to their Roddenberry's birth-versary party and I gotta admit it was a lot of fun.

Note the Command:Science officer ratio
(there's another one on the red bean bag too)

There's a liberating joy in the experience of cosplay. The immersive aspect of wearing a recognizable uniform or the implicit permission to take on the mannerisms and attitudes of established characters let "grown-up"s remember how to let loose and PLAY. If we forget how to play, we forget how to imagine and dream and recognize the sheer absurdity of the things that stress us out. We forget to explore. Not just space and time and the past but our backyards, ourselves, our own abilities. So in the spirit of boldly going places, why not try something new today? Play a little. Grow a little. Laugh a lot. Come back and tell me what you did.

Make it so.

It's a Bird. It's a Plane.

Today is Superhero Day for Spirit Week at my school. Believe it or not, this is the only actual supe shirt I have. It's old. It's a little tight in the arms. It's unfashionably short. I honestly don't remember where I bought it so there's no real story here.

And yet I didn't throw it out/donate it when I was sorting stuff this summer. I guess there's a part of me that really likes the shirt. There's a classic feel to wearing such a recognizable logo and there's a certain humour to the connotative value of it. Maybe I figure that any self-respecting geek girl needs a Superman shirt at the ready.

Mostly, though, I probably figured that there would be days where I would need to feel a little Superman-like.

And, for my two cents, Dean Cain is still my favourite Supe portrayer.

Between the Lines

I'm backdating again because I've been sick but DID go to work on Thursday and this is the shirt I wore. I just couldn't manage to write and post anything then. This is another one from Unshelved and it's one that caused some controversy with a library patron when I wore it to work. Her issue with it basically boiled down to an initial "I don't get it" reaction and when I tried to explain my interpretation of it, she decided it was a bad idea and, possibly, that I was a bad person for wearing the shirt. I shrugged and continued on with my day but the more I thought about it, the more ambiguous the statement seemed.

My reading of it is that reading is something we can do for ourselves and without reprisal. Getting to choose our reading material should be a free and obvious right in a civilised world. It's not the only interpretation though. So, feel free to re-interpret here and maybe Bill Barnes or Gene Ambaum can chime in with where they were going with it when they wrote the strip the shirt is based on.

I hope to be more interesting next week when this gorram, curst cold lets go of me. Until then, it's Buckley's and hot lemon & honey tinctures until I want to puke, I guess. Also, I'll be reading. Check my shelves on goodreads.com for details. Cheers!

Muppet Socialism

Let's talk Fraggles. Thank you, Jim Henson.

From the Wiki entry: As described by Henson, "[The series is] a high-energy, raucous musical romp. It's a lot of silliness. It's wonderful." While the program was accessible to audiences of all ages, it used the fantasy creatures as an allegory to deal with serious issues such as prejudice, spirituality, personal identity, environment, and social conflict.

 

The hippy flower children of the Muppet world, they had the most intricately laid out television puppet culture ever. They broached serious topics with as much candor and intelligence as All the in the Family ever did. They entertained. They educated. The mere thought of them make me smile. I've often wished that we humans could share dreams the way sleeping Fraggles could.

And, for the record, I always felt a little bad for Sprocket.

 
Dance your cares away,
Worry's for another day.
Let the music play,
Down at Fraggle Rock.

Work you cares away,
Dancing's for another day.
Let the Fraggles play,
We're Gobo, Mokey, Wembley, Boober, Red.

Dance your cares away,
Worry's for another day.
Let the music play,
Down at Fraggle Rock.
Down at Fraggle Rock.
Down at Fraggle Rock.

I don't own a Fraggle shirt.

These are Doozers

Doozers are the anti-Fraggles. Doozers live to work. They spend all their waking hours building structures out of radishes that Fraggles eat. EAT. In fact, when the Fraggles stop eating Doozer buildings, Doozer look to move elsewhere because they run out of space to build and obviously they aren't needed anymore if they aren't serving the Fraggle need. Doozers tell stories about Doozers who don't WANT to work and build all the time and end up turning into ... Fraggles. The antithesis and yet the symbiotic partner of everything Fraggle.

The Doozers are the public servants of the Fraggle world. Fraggle Rock wouldn't cease to exist without them but it would be a lot more difficult to find food. They truly to live to serve. And, of course, there are Doozers who rebel and try to buck the trend. Some even try being Fraggles. Eventually, they find their niche though and the status quo is restored. I have worked in public institutions since I was 15 years old. And the few jobs I have had that weren't government jobs have been in the service industry. I have to admit there are days when I feel more like a rebel Doozer when I want to be a Fraggle but I wouldn't do the work I do if I didn't enjoy it. 

I believe there has to be meaning in one's work if it is truly a "career" versus a "job". I remember learning about "vocations" in school (of course, they were talking about religious callings at the time) but it wasn't until someone tried to comfort me on a bad day that "it's just a job" and I really bristled at the phrase and said,"No, it's really not" that I knew I was in the right place. Doozers aren't forced to do the work they do. They do it because it fulfills their purpose and, without purpose, what's the point? Although Fraggles had a lot of fun, the episodes were often about their purpose-of-the-moment. And that's fair : it doesn't have to be a life-long purpose, but you gotta have something.

Life Long Learner

Not a very exciting shirt but I have several versions of this one as I sat on the Education Students Association as AMS Rep the year that I earned my Bachelor of Education degree. As of this year, I have belonged to the Education Faculty twice as long as I was an Arts Undergrad Student member. Sheesh. 

There's a version of this shirt in my wardrobe that I don't wear to school. Across the back is emblazoned "I GOT MY DEGREE IN BEd". Once, possibly during my practicum, I did wear it, forgetting what was written on the back and a student asked me, point-blank,"Is that supposed to be dirty?" Haven't worn it since. In fact, I believe the ESA was prohibited from using that slogan again. The last one I saw sported around the Neville Scarfe building at UBC read "DON'T MAKE ME USE MY TEACHER VOICE" instead.

Like I said, I'm still enrolled in the Education Faculty at UBC, eight years into my teaching career. Last May, I finished my diploma in Teacher-Librarianship and had a short-lived 24 hours of "I am officially FREE of UBC" celebrations only to be informed that the Faculty had reinstated the MIA Diploma in Special Education that would have been eminently more practical for my current job. Having taken 21 credits in courses in Special Ed while completing the 30 credits for the T-L diploma, I called the admissions office to inquire what kind of frequent flyer points I could get in light of the Spec. Ed Diploma's return. "Oh, that's easy," the nice lady on the phone said,"You just need to come back and take another 9 credits." NOT the answer I was looking for. > <

So I officially hold triple alumni AND current student status. And because I had taken nearly all the secondary school applicable Special Ed courses UBC had to offer, I signed up for something new - Special Ed training for students with giftedness with an intro course this term and a more practical follow-up course on program design next term. Ironically, as much as I detest online courses, this has been the best organized course I've taken in a long time. I've found the readings (all of which are available for free online) interesting and informative and the assignments less than onerous. Especially nice is the extremely reasonable word limits the instructor(s) have set out. 

This week's reading and assignment was centred on an article by Ronald A. Beghetto about his theory of "Ideational Code-Switching" (ICS), a metaphor for classroom appropriate creative expression based on the linguistic theory of code-switching that multilingual people use when faced with a challenging conversational partner. In Beghetto's ICS theory, students/learners source their creativity within personally relevant ideas/skills but need to be able to express their idea or utilize their skill in a way that benefits the curriculum-based, classroom-framed task at hand. A child with an amazing gift for dance isn't necessarily going to be a sought-after group contributor if all he does is pirouette around the room constantly. However, if he has been taught some basics of movement and choreography, he may be the go-to person to organize the group for a cheer routine or direct a scene within a play. He may also be able to express his creative expertise through media - video or still art/poses. It's the MacGyver theory of useful knowledge/talents, the Swiss Army knife of exceptionalities - great if you use the right gadget in the right context, seriously disruptive when you don't.

Part of what drew me to education in the first place (well after my B.A. completion, btw) was the fact that no two classes are ever the same whether you are the teacher or the student. Even when I was teaching academic curricula and had multiples of the same course, every discussion that emerged was a whole new frontier of learning. And something I try to instill in my students is that learning happens in spite of disinterest or frustration. We're constantly learning to cope with new things and setting out new goals for ourselves whether it's conscious or not.

Working on the Beghetto assignment made me realize that this blog is an example of me taking what he calls "mini-c" personal elements (ie. my t-shirt collection) and trying to turn them into "little-c" general-applicable products (ie. blog posts). He defines "big-c" Creativity as the life contributions of Coltrane, Pollack, or Kubrick - talent and inspiration that significantly changes whole genres. Ultimately, this blog is designed to solve my problem of not writing regularly by using stuff I already have and establishing a routine I can keep. So far, so good.

So what have I learned recently (say, the last 24 hrs)?

1. Don't design an envelope without a method to securely seal it
2. Legion Halls in Vancouver are okay with you ordering food to be delivered as long as you clean up after yourself. Especially on a Monday night. Especially if your group is buying a lot of beer from the bar.
3. Don't ask for blog post comments on a specific topic if you've written something more controversial in the post itself, even if it was only a moment of frustrated venting.
4. Pizza is (still) the best food to eat as a cold left-over.
5. One of my friends is cousins to a guy who spends summers in a shared rented cabin with John Hodgman (Hi, I'm a PC) and Jonathan Coulton. They're school buddies.

And, going back to the weekend, I learned that this existed:
 

So.... what have YOU learned lately?

A Town By Any Other Name...

Fans of the Arrogant Worms know that Newfoundland has some of the most entertaining town names in the English-speaking world (the Welsh and German might contest a linguistically-generalized claim)

In my Grade 12 year, I won the Northern Saskatchewan Junior Achievement CanJAC award which sent me to Hamilton, Ontari-ari-o to represent Saskatoon & area at a national convention of young entrepreneurs and business people. I remember I shared a McMaster dorm room with a very pretty redheaded girl and a dorm floor with one of the speech finalists who was having a serious case of the nerves, pacing the halls and common room, muttering lines of her speech and gesticulating at a fast forward speed as she rehearsed for the final showdown.

I remember the night of the speech comp because I wore a similar outfit to the Asian girl who ended up winning the competition and spent a lot of the evening graciously accepting congrats and then explaining that it wasn't me they meant to congratulate.

Of all the great memories from that trip, meeting Brian Kidney from Mount Pearl, NL, was the most long-lasting as we maintain our friendship to this day. He had never heard of the Worms and thereby had no idea the song existed so as soon as I got home, I dubbed him a mix tape (!) of all the best Arrogant Worms' songs.

 

Now, today's shirt obviously came from Newfoundland. Brian and his wife Lori have sent me Newfie-loving shirts as birthday and/or Christmas gifties but (and I could be wrong) I think this one I bought for myself when I was visiting Mount Pearl for their wedding. (Crazy attack trees injuring the groom aside, it was a wonderful wedding). There's a obvious omission to maintain the shirt's "G" rating but it gets the point across. To put a finer point on said point, Brian and Lori and their burgeoning family are about to make the move to Paradise. Seriously awesome.

While on the East Coast topic, this past summer, Jeff's parents let him know that they'd be "gone camping" for a week or two. They often head out to the Rockies or down to Oregon for camping trips all through the summer months so this wasn't unusual. The email we got from NOVA SCOTIA the next week was. They'd decided to take their camping equipment and their VW Golf across the continent. It wasn't until after they'd left NL that we even knew they'd planned on ferrying over to The Rock. I love my in-laws-to-be. And they loved Blow Me Down Provincial Park, one of the few campsites they didn't get rained out of.

I've always felt very lucky to live in a country as large and diverse as Canada (which, btw, gets its name from the First Nations word for "village" or "settlement") and the idea of making my home anywhere else in the world is unfathomable but that doesn't mean I don't have a sense of humour about how a place name can sound to a newcomer. My father's favourite joke about Chilliwack (the town, not the band) was that, to find it, you needed to cross Hell's Gate and travel beyond Hope. And one of my favourite activities to give Social Studies classes is the BC Places Quiz because whether you're from a money river or the left side of a cantaloupe, you should know better than to roll a furry joint and take a cool hit without really knowing the world around you.

Geo-Caching/Checking In... Toe-May-Toe/Toe-Mah-Toe

Years ago I met a girl in England who, like me, had come from Canada to live abroad to soothe the dreaded wanderlust bug. She told me about geocaching, an activity she was excited to continue pursuing now that she was on a different continent. She described this activity as a global scavenger hunt/swap meet, where participants used GPS navigation to find "caches", containers containing a logbook and trinkets left by other geocachers. A geocacher would, upon finding the cache, log their own info in the logbook and could then leave behind their own trinket in exchange for someone else's.

My acquaintance explained to me that this activity had grown out of "letterboxing" (another pastime I had never heard of) which involved postcards and rubber stamps. As fascinating as it all sounded (who doesn't love the idea of a global treasure hunt?) it wasn't something I was going to invest a lot of time or energy in. It was, however, I thought, very nice that, besides the cost of travel, it was an inexpensive hobby and it really made a traveller take a close look at their surroundings.

I added the Gowalla app because it came from the creators of my first Facebook game addiction, Packrat. Essentially, it was a digital geocaching game where I could check-in with my iPhone and win "items" that I could collect or drop at locations. I still believe the platform was more fun than Foursquare but it never caught on like Foursquare did. 

According to Wiki, Gowalla closed down earlier this year. I got my t-shirt while in San Diego for Comic-Con 2010. Gowalla represented at the Tweet House party on board the USS Midway where I spent the evening rubbing elbows with a neat cross-section of geek-tastic celebrities. I was all about the swag that week and a free t-shirt from a social media platform wherein I held over 200 badges was a sweet score.

The issue with digital geocaching versus the old-school hobby was that it's a little narcissistic to believe that every check-in is worthy of noting when it's so easy. Foursquare is more about other people knowing where you ARE than where you've been. And there is no challenge to checking in to your local Starbucks 80 times compared to actually looking for a cache that someone else has taken the time to create and GPS map. Ultimately, Foursquare and Yelp! and other check-in platforms are designed to be marketing tools for businesses to use to get their name and reputation out there. It's a fun way to find a place to eat or to see what other people find "fun" in the area. Not much of a treasure hunt though. 

I actually haven't played Packrat in a long time now and it wasn't until I opened my Gowalla app this morning that I realized that checking in with it is no longer an option. What the app is good for now, though, is seeing what were popular check-in locations in the city. The developers left a lot of the information up as "city guides" and the cute artistry that drew me to the platform initially is still there. It's a little startling to realize that I've outlived a social media platform. Woah.

Music T: Thank Cohen It's Friday

Leonard Cohen has a style to his music and writing unlike any in the world. And I don't think that it's hyperbolic to say so. No one else's music, in my experience, sounds or feels like Cohen's. (Try to convince me otherwise. Seriously. Go ahead.) Maybe what it is is that no one really tries to sounds like him because it's not possible to do so without being obvious that you ARE trying. In live concert, Cohen imbues the largest arena with the intimacy of a living room or, more evocatively, a bedroom. Close your eyes and he's singing to you, playing for you, speaking just for you. The quality and talent of musicians he gathers to his inner circle is nothing short of stunning. And with a body of work spanning four decades - nearly five now - he does not skimp on the portions. His shows in Vancouver the last few years have started promptly at 7pm. No opener, just straight into 3 hours plus of song and poetry. I love getting floor seats to his shows because you actually get to sit in your seat. His most ardent fans sit and focus on the music and artistry on display.

Arguably, his best known song, "Hallelujah" has been covered (according to Wiki) by over 200 artists since its release in 1984. Its inclusion in the Vancouver Olympics opening ceremonies was touching but rather out of sync with the spirit of the ceremony if one were to review the lyrics:

Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you
To a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the hallelujah

Hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah
You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken hallelujah

Hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I'll stand before the lord of song
With nothing on my tongue but hallelujah

Hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah

Although I've never met the man in person, a friend's mother ran into him before a concert in her hotel lobby in Edmonton a couple of years ago. She took the opportunity to let him know that she was a fan and was on her way to the concert. He took the time to ask her name and what she did for a living. When she told him she was a nurse, he was smooth as silk in telling her that he really needed a nurse to travel with the band "and look after this old body of mine..." *sigh*

I can't really put my finger on a favourite Cohen song but I have said, and will most probably say again, that I'm "in a _______ mood". The blank may be filled with:

or

or

but there will always be a Cohen song that fills it perfectly.

Building Vocab, Creating 'Verses

I think the first phrase I ever adopted from watching a show or reading a book was "Geez Louise". I was about nine and can't remember now where I picked it up from. I do remember being reprimanded by a schoolmate at our Catholic private school for taking the Lord's name in vain. I was shocked. I was? Nine-year-old me had never made the connection between "Geez" and "Jesus".

Joss Whedon's use of "shiny" as a blanket positive term in his Firefly/Serenity universe has been adopted globally by Browncoats everywhere as has the slang abbreviation " 'verse " to denote both real and fictional uni- and multi- verses.

Today's shirt is a Teefury buy and I'm almost absolutely sure that Mitch and J also ordered their own when they bought this gift for me. Jayne, after all, is Mitch's favourite character from Firefly/Serenity.

Like Shakespeare, the truly creative minds of contemporary times use language itself as a power device that sets their world-building apart from other endeavours. BSG's "frak". Star Wars' "nerf herder". Star Trek's "make it so". And Big Bang Theory's "Bazinga". Scott Westerfeld's Uglies series is another example, this time in the literary forum, where the slang is an intrinsic part of the characters and society in his post-apocalyptic California. In fact, it was such a major part, he co-wrote an entire companion book to the series, glossing the slang. 

In high school, my social circle headed out to see Mad Love, starring Chris O'Donnell and Drew Barrymore. Not actually sure why we picked it in the first place. We didn't love the movie after seeing it but the title tickled us as a pun-ny sort of euphemism for movies in general. For at least a few months afterwards, we referred to movie night as Mad Love Night. We thought it was fun-ny.

Language is a huge part of our world and what we adopt from our media reflects our interests and appreciation for the effort that goes into that which entertains us. Have any other words/phrases learned from shows or books worked their way into your vernacular?

Vita Longissima Est

Be careful what you wish for. I shamelessly fished for comments on yesterday's post and then spent as much time, maybe more, reading and responding to your wonderful thoughts on sitcoms as I did on the post itself.

Let's keep the discourse rolling...

Once upon a time, I was a Fringe Fanatic. Not of the TV show or the fashion accessory. Fringe Festivals. Fringe THEATRE Festivals. It started as a fun summer volunteer activity when I was a teen in Saskatoon (where it happens in early August) but even after I moved to Vancouver for university, I sought out the tiny venues, the low-budget sets, the crazy creativity and crazed performers who travel coast to coast every summer hand billing potential audience members, billeting in local homes, launching into impromptu promotions on street corners to drum up that almighty "buzz".

The problem for me with the Vancouver Fringe Festival is that it occurs right when school starts in September.  Not as much a problem when I was a full-time undergrad student and could balance a skipped class against the awesomeness of an innovative live art performance. Way more of a problem now that I am the teacher. I have missed out on a lot of amazing shows in the past 5-8 years.

This August, one of my retired high school teachers from Saskatoon came through Vancouver en route to the antipodean continent, Australia (he's dropping in on NZ too, but I like using "antipodean" any chance I have and NZ isn't technically a continent in and of itself). We spent a few hours sightseeing and comparing notes on theatre, TV and movies. He had fringed it up in Saskatoon earlier that month and told me, in no uncertain terms, that if I was going to see ANY show at the Fringe, I had to see "Fishbowl"

Yes, sir.

And then school started and I missed the whole damn festival. #FAIL

Luckily, I'm on nearly every festival email list in Vancouver and Mr. Ramsden was not alone in his admiration for "Fishbowl". The show was chosen as a "Pick of the Fringe" show and I had the opportunity to see its last Vancouver 2012 performance last Thursday at the Performance Works venue on Granville Island.

I took a friend to the show with me and could only tell him that it was a one-man show with four characters and people I trusted deemed it "brilliant". No idea what the plot, setting, raison d'être was. Just "brilliant".

Mine's special. Mark signed it!

Just "brilliant" indeed. The show is written and performed by Mark Shyzer (whose surname alone already makes him the coolest guy I've ever met at the Fringe - and that includes Alan Cumming) and the characters he portrays are amazing individuals perched on a precipice of change in their respective lives:

- A teenage genius is about to single-handedly redefine the laws of the physical universe and only her fish really understands her work. 

- A sensitive but outwardly apathetic ("whatevs") boy is watching his family fall apart. 

- A terminally ill man contemplates his mark on the world. 

- A world-weary woman regards upcoming nuptials through the lens of her life experience and with an anxious eye on where her path may lead. 

A motley crew of characters. Each perfectly nuanced in voice and posture, cadence and lilt. One man behind it all. A genuinely thrilling exhibition of acting craft. But it was a truly stellar show not only for the execution of the material. The material itself, the script and plot - because there is an incredibly woven plot here, folks - is smart and emotional and deep but funny. Not sitcom funny. It makes you laugh in the delight of discovery, and in self-effacing recognition of everyday mundanities. My first question to producer Sarah Olmstead, who was mobbed by audience members looking for merchandise after the show, was whether they would be publishing the script. It's the collector in me. I may have lots of tshirts (thank the FSM that they had one for "Fishbowl") and hundreds of DVDS, possibly thousands of books but above all, I collect words and language. I love words and the infinite combinations of them and the constantly new uses for them and, especially, the ability to encapsulate and deliver an incredibly complex concept using the simplest of phrasing. (See? simple still isn't easy.)

In every good show, whether it's Fringe/TV/movie/radio, there are moments of gorgeous clarity, hanging in the audience's consciousness like the last ray of twilight highlighting a suddenly still landscape. In "Fishbowl" there were two of these moments for me. One was teen genius, Esther's, explanation of dark matter. Because there is no published script (yet!) for me to quote and because I REALLY REALLY REALLY don't want to spoil this moment for others who plan on seeing "Fishbowl" at some point in the future, I will paraphrase in invisi-type (highlight with your cursor to see):

Dark matter, she states, is like the pages of a book. We do not read the pages, we read the words on the pages. The words, therefore, are like the known matter of the universe but it is the dark matter that holds it altogether. The mass of the book is made up primarily of the pages, not the words, just as the universe is primarily made up of the dark matter not our known matter. Take the pages away and the words lose all their meaning and form and fall apart as a sploosh of ink. Take dark matter away and...

Seriously, I think I felt my brain implode as it all. made. sense.

The other moment belonged to goth-ish Ravyn (aka "Don't call me Francis") describing his love, maybe need, to sit in the dark. (Again, I'm paraphrasing. The actual scene is scripted far more tightly and perfectly than my recall allows.) He theorizes that when we have the lights on, we are all in different places made obvious by our surroundings but when we are in a true pitch dark, we are all in the SAME PLACE, the SAME DARK. Dark is the same wherever you are. It connects us spiritually. And maybe, he hypothesizes, we're all DISconnected spiritually these days because we all leave the lights on all the time. 

The t-shirt (btw, *newsflash*: American Apparel unisex is NOT as stupidly sized as their women's tees) sports the phrase that I've yoinked for my post title "VITA LONGISSIMA EST" under the fishbowl/globe (which puts us all inside, looking out, if you think too much about it) It's Latin, meaning "Life is very long", a reference to another Ravyn line in which he responds to the adage "Life is short" (and I THINK this quote is accurate)

"Hyah, whatevs," he scoffs,"Life is the longest thing I've ever done."

Zazzles is a Kick-Ass Cat Name

The sitcom is nearly a lost art these days. Or maybe it is that television comedy has "evolved" into a new species. According to the Wiki, sitcoms evolved from variety sketch comedy shows, the identifying trait being that sitcoms maintained a regular cast of characters and setting, and employed "running" jokes.

One of the only true sitcoms I watch anymore is The Big Bang Theory (aka TBBT). From the first notes of its Barenaked Ladies theme song ...




... to the final punchline of its stinger scene, the geniuses of Pasadena never fail to entertain. And for a show that began with a central foursome of men, Bill Prady and his dauntless team have created some fabulous female characters to balance the gendering of the show.

A running joke in TBBT is that when someone is sick, according to Dr. Sheldon Cooper, they get to have "Soft Kitty" sung to them like his MeeMaw did when he was young. My friend Lesley found this t-shirt for me on ThinkGeek (see, everyone I know shops there eventually) and it's one of my favourite shirts to wear to bed or on a do-nothing-feeling-sick-read-a-book-or-hope-for-a-TBBT-marathon day. Today was the first day of the first "Spirit Week" of the school year - PJ Day. Since I rode transit to work today, I split the difference and wore this as a salute to sleep shirts.

What I left at home, silent and deadly, on its shelf with my other talking toys, is my singing Soft Kitty Doll. Press its paw and you are immediately regaled by a full volume, slightly off-tune, low-quality recording of Kaley Cuoco's Penny singing the lullaby. Merchandising, thy will be done...

So, reader participation time! Topic: SITCOMS

What qualifies as a sitcom in this day and age of television? What criteria, if any, would you set? Does it have to have a "live studio audience"? A catchy theme song? A token ethnic minority? Does it have to be funny? endearing? moral? surreal? What is your favourite sitcom memory? Mine is probably watching "Three's Company" with my mom. And I'll argue that the most brilliant season finale ever was Newhart which managed to create a running joke between TWO completely different sitcoms, from totally different decades. Any takers on that debate? And while we're on this generalist topic? Does M*A*S*H count as a sitcom? or Modern Family even (that one hour format eliminates it for me)? Where are the parameters today?

Booking It

I got into a bad habit last year of "borrowing" my partner's car to drive to work in, thus allowing myself to sleep in for an extra ten minutes and ultimately waste the monthly transit pass I had paid $110 for. This year, having this blog to work on sort of motivates me to take transit more regularly because it frees up my hands for 45 minutes every morning. Of course, without the blog, I could be reading one of the ten books on my Goodreads "To Read" shelf or fifteen books piled on my bedside table or the Kindle edition of Rick Riordan's The Red Pyramid or the Kobo edition of my friend Trisha's self-published YA novel Whispers In Autumn (which EVERYONE should buy and read before the sequel comes out later this month. Seriously, it's $3.84 on Kobo. Check it) or even a newspaper. From experience, though, chances are that if I wasn't writing this blog, I'd be catnapping in some uncomfortable sitting position, waking suddenly every two minutes to see if I'd missed my stop. Interesting how priorities are often context-based.

Today's shirt is from a website near and dear to my heart, run by a couple of the funniest and most clever cartoonists online today. Of course, they used to work in public libraries as well, which qualifies them for sainthood and assures them a place among the stars like all of us bibliophiles.

Gene Ambaum and Bill Barnes are the creative twosome who parent Unshelved.com, a daily comic strip that chronicles the quirks and quibbles of the fictional (?) Mallville public library where an intelligent and experienced staff of information specialists tap dances the line of very real public service, the theoretical world of public accountability, and the seemingly surreal logic of the public themselves with aplomb, alacrity and awe-inspiring snark (Mon thru Thurs with Fridays reserved for a single-cell, graphically-rendered review of actual books and classic strips posted on the weekends).

As I am obviously the willing and joyful target of all forms of merchandising, the shop at Unshelved.com is one of my favourite places to while away my break time and some of my paycheque. Beside this one, I own one other shirt and have purchased and gifted the Bibliovore shirt, two of the LIBRARY raid jackets, and one discontinued bookbag to others.

I was fortunate enough to meet Gene in person at Comic-Con in 2010 and even benefited from one of his colleagues having an extra ticket to Wil Wheaton's w00tstock SDCC 2010 (don't know how well that link will work since it's a FB photo album. Let me know if it's SNAFU) where I got to share air with folks like Mythbusters Adam Savage, Jamie Hyneman, and Grant Imahara; musicians Marion Call, Paul and Storm, and Molly Lewis; Science God Phil Plait; and Cylon heavy hitter and fellow Canuck Aaron Douglas. Savage's rendition of "I Will Survive" in the voice of Gollum while accompanied by a Wookiee on guitar was beyond memorable.

As for the t-shirt's sentiment, I'll conditionally agree that most books are better than their movie adaptations. Ultimately, it's a different medium thus a different narrative. For example, so many books are told in first person but movies are rarely shot that way, even if there is a first person voice-over utilized. It seems artificial to present an entire movie from a single individual's perspective whereas immersing oneself in a character while reading a book is totally natural. And I believe that the real let-down for lit-fans is that the movie manifestation of the characters/worlds they have come to love will never capture the magic of being mentally and emotionally invested the way a good book insists on. Sometimes, as in The English Patient, both the book and the movie can be incredible works of art but in totally different ways. Sometimes the only thing that ties the original literature and the adaptation together is a common title and the names of the characters and places - the musical theatre version of Wicked comes to mind here (seriously). And there are (rare) times where the film surpasses the source material. My go-to example of this is the 2005 cinematic adaptation of C.S. Lewis' The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe which, while deviating in problematic places from the book in terms of character, was vastly more entertaining than the original 172 (or thereabouts) pages of Christian metaphor. Sadly, the "sexifying" of the subsequent Prince Caspian was supremely painful and I'm still haunted by the Georgia O'Keefe overtones of Aslan's sending home of the Telmarines - so wrong.

Partly wondering if anyone is reading regularly, partly to start a little discussion here: 

Question/s of the Day: What film (or television) adaptation of literary origin is, in your opinion, the best/worst of the lot? Any that I must see/avoid? Any releases coming up that are viewed with great anticipation/trepidation?