the pod bay door

:: In Canada, our Thanksgiving is tomorrow, Oct 13. This year I will be celebrating and giving thanks among the company of some good friends. There was an interesting article in today’s Edmonton Journal about the first Thanksgiving ceremony in North America. It took place in 1578 in the Canadian Arctic, 43 years before the so-called “first Thanksgiving in the New World” in 1621, in Massachusetts.

:: Tonight I do not feel well. My body feels a bit sore all over, and I’m more than a little tired. I’ve been working out and still eating well for the most part. My head hurts too. Time to boost the Cold-FX capsules, perhaps? This was also a day that included events about which I cannot write on this site, and that were quite draining. It is a lousy feeling to be helpless when long-term behaviour of a mean-spirited nature goes on and on, with malice of forethought.

:: I saw the movie Intolerable Cruelty tonight, and give it 7/10. I also saw School of Rock on Friday, and give it 8.5/10. It’s fun to assign numbers to things.

:: Regarding Neil Postman, I was a day ahead of the news of his passing reaching at least one major internet site. The NYTimes published a lengthy obit today. Surprisingly, there is still no mention of his death on the NYU site.

:: Last August, I made mention of ManPop, a rock festival held in Winnipeg in what I thought was 1971. My friend in Minneapolis, Garth Danielson, sent a link to the 1970 Led Zeppelin tour list, and under August 29th, is the Man Pop Festival. So ManPop was in 1970, not 1971. Thanks for the correction, G.

:: I’ve made small progress with my workouts and nutrition program. I’ve tipped the scales down about four pounds since I turned up the intensity of the workouts a couple weeks ago, while continuing close monitoring of my food intake on a number of levels.

:: Remember Tears for Fears, and how they wanted to rule the world and shout, shout, let it all out? Principal members Curt Smith and Roland Orzabal are have reunited recently, after 13 years. After Smith left in 1990, Orzabal kept the name of band going, releasing a couple of albums in the 1990s under the TFF banner, but ostensibly those were solo albums. The band has signed with Arista to release a new album in Spring, 2004. The album will be called Everybody Loves A Happy Ending. (And this really isn’t new news: here’s an interview with Orzabal from July 15, 2003, that mentions the reunion (requires Real Player). More details here as well.

:: Among the many interviews given by Al Franken, here’s an interesting one conducted by Steven Waldman, EiC of Beliefnet, a multi-faith web site of no particular religious affiliation. (From: Derryl.)

:: One of the interesting books I read this year is Amusing Ourselves To
Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, by Neil Postman, a professor at the Department of Culture and Communication, Steinhardt School of Education, NYU, and a well known critic and analyst of media and pop culture and their effect and impact on society. Despite having been published in 1985, pre-Internet days, I found “Amusing” to be quite relevant in 2003. In the book, Postman discusses the impact of television on society, and believes that, as one reviewer put it, “TV teaches us to live a decontextualized life.” Postman is the author of 17 books, including Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, and The Disappearance of Childhood.

While driving home tonight, I was channel flipping on my car radio, and when I changed the station to the CBC program As It Happens, I realized I was listening to a segment of a speech Postman gave in Toronto a few years ago at a conference. I knew it was him because I recognized about what he was talking. When the segment ended, the announcer said that Postman passed away last week from lung cancer.

Here’s the weird part: despite my best efforts, I can’t find a single web site or news item on the Internet to verify this. Even Postman’s departmental web pages make no mention of his passing, although I noticed that the faculty page from his department removed the hotlink from his mini-bio. I searched CNN and NYTimes – nothing. Yet on the As It Happens web site for today, Oct 7, 2003, you can hear the complete segment, a short tribute to Postman, and an extract from his keynote address at a May 1998 conference sponsored by the North American National Broadcasters Association. (Note the entry at the bottom of the page: “FTR-NEIL POSTMAN (MU) Duration: 00:03:06.”) The program can be heard here, requiring Real Player (the file is a .ram file). The segment about Postman begins at 42:30 minutes, or so.

This is one of those mysteries of the Internet – for someone so well known in the media itself, that there would be no mention his passing anywhere on the web is, well, bizarre.

:: Ahnuld is the new governor of California. Happy Tuesday!

:: When Michael Moore‘s book, Stupid White Men, appeared in print after some post-Sept 11 delays, it shot to the top of the NYTimes Best Seller List, remained there for weeks, and was the best selling non-fiction book of 2002. Nonetheless, the NYTimes never published a review of the title (I’ve never found one on the web site, and a review never appeared in their book review section). Al Franken’s new book, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, has been #1 on the list for five weeks, having been bumped to #2 this week by none other than Franken’s drinking buddy and book cover subject, Bill O’Reilly. A review of Franken’s book appeared recently, written by former NYT chief film critic, Janet Maslin. Oddly enough, Moore’s new book, Dude, Where’s My Country?, goes on sale tomorrow, and what do you find in the Times this morning? Well, hush my mouth – a review by Janet Maslin!

This fascinating observation suggests the NYTimes Best Seller list is revealing that, after perhaps a decade of domination by right wing authors, the playing field has been levelled by an equally successful number of writres from the left. I bought the Franken book on the weekend, it’s next on my list of must reads. I hope to buy the Moore book later this month.

:: I had a strange run-in with a woman at the YMCA today. After my workout, I did a few stretches and such on the large mat, and when finished, proceeded to spray the area I was on with the cleanser found in bottles throughout the workout centre. However, there was no cloth, usually with each spray bottle, that I could use to wipe the mat afterwards. I looked to my right, where this woman was working out vigorously on the mat, and noticed two cloths. I stepped behind her (she was on her back) to grab one of the cloths, and she stopped and said to me, “that was really rude.” I started to apologize, and she interrupted me, saying, “Get lost, and don’t talk to me.”

I was more nonplussed than anything, and mumbled a couple things under my breath. I was finished anyway, and left to go shower and get dressed.

A friend of mine has an expression she applies to people like this, and it goes something like, “Gee, who sh*t in your cornflakes this morning?” Yes, her reaction rattled me a bit – certainly I had no intention of being rude or getting in her way (which to me, I didn’t do anyway.) Afterwards I thought of a witty retort, but at the time, just decided to walk away and leave things be. But to me, in her own way, she was the one who was rude.

Why do people react the way they do? We can never really know.

:: The first time I saw Jessica Owen (then known as Jessica Schoenberg) play was at a folk club in Edmonton in 1992. I was very impressed. At the time, I was playing guitar in a local band, and we decided to call Jessica to ask if she would open for us at an upcoming gig. She agreed, and we met sometime later at my office at the U of Alberta. Some months later, I was playing and jamming with her whenever I could, and eventually became her guitarist during the mid-90s (although to be honest, I chose to play with her as well – playing with her was too much fun to pass up!) In February 1994, we spent two cold nights at a recording studio in a house in St Albert, laying down 9 of 10 tracks for her first album, Sounds Like A Plan! In April of that year, we played to a full house at The Next Act to celebrate the release of the album, which was available on cassette only.

I was and remain very proud of the work we did on her first record. I realized afterwards that I had strong arranging skills that hadn’t been utilized before, to that degree, anyway. So why am I telling you this? Jessica has a new web site, redesigned from scratch, and within you will find Jessica’s Story, which includes mention of the album.

That’s not all. I’ve had requests over the years from people who wanted to listen to my guitar playing online, and to date I’ve uploaded no tunes that featured me performing. Jessica has solved a bit of that for me by uploading three of the ten tunes from Sounds Like a Plan! One of those tunes is Heartbeat, which remains for me one of her most powerful and dynamic tunes ever, and one that I play from time to time when I play one of my acoustic guitars. (NOTE: You will need Windows Media Player to listen to the .mp3 files.)

If you want to hear my guitar. backing up one of the best singer/songwriters around, go to Jess’s site and listen. When you’re done, be good to yourself and support an incredible independent artist by buying her latest album, Ever So Slightly Rearranged. My (very objective) review might help you decide!