the pod bay door

:: The 2004 IFP Independent Spirit Award Nominations have been announced. The awards will be presented on February 28, 2004, the night before the Oscars.

:: The Village Voice has released its 30th (or 31st) Annual Pazz & Jop Critics’ Poll. Details: “This poll combines ballots from 732 critics, who divided 100 points among 10 2003 albums. Maximum per album: 30. Minimum: 5. Points determined placement, with total mentions (indicated in parenthesis) used for tie breaking.”

I don’t recognize many of the artists on these lists, and certainly don’t know most of the Top 50 singles or albums. Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz featuring Ying Yang Twins? Kelis? Lumidee? Chingy? And what’s with Jay-Z (or Jay-Zed, as we say in Canada): Beyonce featuring Jay-Z, Panjabi MC featuring Jay-Z, Pharrell featuring Jay-Z? OK, I do recognize Warren Zevon, Coldplay, Johnny Cash, The Strokes, Radiohead… Hey…YA!

What am I listening to these days? The Jethro Tull Christmas Album, and it’s damn good.

:: In yet another in a never-ending series of insane and idiotic examples of “this can only ever happen in the USA”, a Knoxville TN woman is suing Janet Jackson, Justin Timberlake, MTV, CBS and Viacom, alleging that she and millions of other viewers suffered “outrage, anger, embarrassment and serious injury“, as a result of the nano-second baring of Jackson’s right mammary gland during the Super Bowl halftime show. The woman is seeking billions of dollars in compensatory and punitive damages! She has not specified what serious injuries she suffered as a result of the incident.

This woman needs to sit down and shut up. How do people come up with this garbage? What lawyer would take this on willingly? (Well, maybe that’s not a leap of faith, actually…)

Here’s hoping this is dismissed as fast as the Al Franken/FOX News lawsuit was last fall.

:: Things are little out of whack lately, as I sort through this and that in my life. It happens. I’m spending an inordinate amount of time agonizing over a lecture I’m giving in an engineering design class next Friday, trying to settle on what to highlight in the 50 minutes, and in what order. My house is a mess, and I’ve got a number of small tasks that I keep putting off, like writing a few letters, sending cards, getting some info to my Dad for a painting he’s composing, etc. I know this will sort itself out. Plus, it’s early February, and already I have events scheduled through to October, which for some reason, I find bothersome. No big deal, I suppose.

:: Among the increasing number of annoying catch-phrases and doublespeak that we hear on television and radio, and read in newspapers and magazines, I detest the habit of sportscasters who use an amount of money to describe the time left in a sporting event, when said time left is under two minutes. “Vince Carter, with a “buck twenty-two” left in the game, slam-dunked a decisive basket, leading the Raptors to victory blah blah blah…” Is this usage supposed to be cooler than saying “a minute and twenty-two seconds?”

I’m also weary of reviewers using the word “twee” to describe music or some other art form. Although I must admit I didn’t know that “niminy-piminy” is a synonym for twee. Whatever…

:: Interesting to note that the two entries below with photos of my father in 1945, and my mother in 2004, both feature them with casts on their right arms.

:: I saw The Triplets of Belleville and City of God this weekend, two Oscar-nominated movies. Both are excellent. Triplets is a bizarre, spaced-out 80-minute animated movie about a grandmother and her grandson, who competes in the Tour de France, but is kidnapped by the French Wine Mafia. There is little dialogue, so no subtitles are needed. And the song, “Belleville Rendezvous“, nominated for the Music (Song) Oscar, is infectious and catchy, making you want to start boogeying in your theatre seat.

City of God is about a young Brazilian boy, growing up in the middle of incredibly violent gang warfare, in the slums of Rio de Janeiro in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. His best friend turns to drug dealing, but he resists the criminal life, and instead dreams of becoming a photographer. It is captivating, sad, and compelling, and deserving of its four nominations.

What follows is an account, written by my father, Michael Reichardt, of the time he was in the Canadian Army, in 1945, near the end of WWII. He didn’t see action in Europe or Japan – he was too young when the war ended, so he was in basic training only. As part of a long-term project, my mother and father will be contributing vignettes about their lives during various time periods, from the 1930s onwards.

When I was in the Canadian Army in 1945, I was stationed at the Fort Garry Barracks in Winnipeg, Manitoba, on the grounds of the University of Manitoba. One of the activities during training hours was boxing, in which I chose to participate.

I trained with a few other soldiers, and finally the day arrived for the boxing matches. At the time, however, I was also training in another elite squad of soldiers. That weekend, this elite squad was scheduled to be honour guards at the intersection of Portage Avenue and Main Street (the major intersection in Winnipeg), to celebrate another successful war bond drive. As a result, I had to miss the boxing card. I didn’t mind too much, however, because I got a 48 hour pass out of it.



The officers in charge chose the best disciplined and presentable soldiers to be members of this special squad In addition to myself, my best friend, George Hartley, was also chosen to march. George and I had joined up at the same time, and we went to junior high and high school at the same time as well.

Prior to leaving Fort Garry for advanced training at Camp Shilo, I had volunteered for the Japan war theatre, because the war had ended in Europe. VE Day was May 8 1945. After our basic training was over, we were transferred to Camp Shilo, south of Brandon, in western Manitoba, in the middle of May, 1945. After we were settled at Shilo, boxing came up again. I volunteered and this time got to fight. The only match I fought ended in a draw, and I broke my right thumb, and my nose was also badly injured. My opponent was left handed, and I didn’t train to fight a southpaw, so it was quite confusing to land punches.

After the fight, my right thumb was in severe pain, and the doctor ordered an x-ray, confirming that the thumb was broken. I ended up with a cast on my right hand, up to my elbow, for what seemed forever. All that for a broken thumb, and it was during the hot summer months, and my arm was very itchy most of the time. My nose was very sore after the fight; the doctor asked me if I was having any difficulty breathing, and at the time, I said it seemed to be fine. Since the fight, I have had problems breathing through the left nostril. Nasal surgery in the early 1960’s helped correct the problem for a few years, but the difficulty breathing eventually returned, and remains to this day. While recovering from the injury, I was assigned to light duty as an orderly in administration, and did not take advance training with the rest of the platoon.



Together with other Canadian volunteers, we were to be transported by rail from Camp Shilo, Manitoba, to Vernon, British Columbia, to train with American military officers. The American basic training instruction was to be given at Vernon, to be followed by advance/jungle warfare training at Camp Breckenridge in Kentucky.

Then one day, perhaps August 12, 1945, we were ordered to line up for a physical, in preparation for the forthcoming troop movement to Vernon. I went along with the big cast on my right-hand/arm, lined up and passed the physical. I inadvertently covered the cast with my jacket, and the doctors didn’t notice it during the inspection! Within a couple days we packed our gear, piled onto a passenger train and headed west. Aug 14 1945 was VJ Day (Victory in Japan) and it was too late to cancel this troop movement. We were heading for Vernon, British Columbia, where we were scheduled to take American Army basic training.

While we were riding the train, a new medical staff did their physical inspections, and when they saw me, they asked me, “How the hell did you get on here?”, advising that I wasn’t supposed to be on this troop movement with a broken arm. So now I’m leaving for further training, and I pleading total innocence, of course! What does an 18 year old kid know?

When we got to Vernon, the first thing the medics did was to rip off the cast with a pair of big tin snips. Shortly thereafter, it was back to basic training, but only for a short time, as the army was talking about demobilizing, and was asking for volunteers for guard duty or a career in the service. Because of my young age, I had a choice of being discharged early or remaining with the Army. I chose to leave the Army, and returned home to Winnipeg on the train.

After the discharge at Fort Osborne Barracks in Winnipeg, I enrolled in a six-month course on architectural and mechanical drafting course at the Manitoba Technical Institute. After graduating, I was unable to find work in drafting, as there were thousands of veterans all looking for work at the same time. Eventually, I took a job at Empire Radio and Auto Supply, where I worked about three years. In the fall of 1949, I left Winnipeg again, this time to go to Wells, British Columbia, to work in a gold mine, but that’s another story for another time.