The future is now

In order to demonstrate its effectiveness and promote it with the utmost sincerity, I am composing this post entirely using the Dragon dictation software on my iPhone.

It is astonishingly accurate. I am perpetually amazed at its capacity to recognize my words and unusual phrasings.

I struggle to sufficiently emphasize how it can transform your workflow.

Just today, this morning, hours ago: I used it to transcribe an entire chapter of a book that is neither in print nor available in any digital format. That task would have been totally monotonous and prohibitively boring before the advent of this technology. Today, it was actually fun!

This is an entirely new way of getting things done. If you have an iPhone and are alive I cannot recommend this software highly enough. Seriously, go download it now. It will rock your world.

Did I forget to mention it's free?

Superhero Blues

One of the best parts of being a dad is the license to indulge my appetite for superhero-themed fun.

It's also made me more aware of (and ambivalent about) the questionable quality (and, yes, morality) of some of the shows i otherwise unreservedly love. Naturally, i'm happy to witness Roy's enthusiasm for the old 60s Spider-Man cartoon. But there's no getting around the fact that — beyond the infamously crap animation and inane scripts — Spidey often comes across as ... just a bit of a thug, really.

What i remember from growing up is mostly how cool it was to watch him swing above the streets of Manhattan and make that weird squirty web-shooter sound. And of course the song.



What i notice most now, watching Roy watch the show, is how basically Spidey just about always saves the day with a resounding right-hook. Ok, fine. But it's not helping with our efforts to socialize him in a non-smacking-everyone kind of way.

But the point of this post is actually an inspiring story — also (partially) from the house of ideas. A few days ago, a story broke about a 4-year-old kid in New Hampshire named Anthony Smith who was born without a right ear, and only partial hearing in his left. Stories of things like that make my heart ache already, just thinking of the basic existential injustice of it all. But Anthony's mom is a pretty heroic advocate for her son, and when he wanted to stop wearing his hearing aid — which vastly improved his ability to interact with others — she sprang into action.

She contacted Marvel. The result is a new icon. A columnist at CNET says: "I defy you not to be moved by this."



"Fight bad guys and help people." Yup. Maybe not always in that order, but it sure sounds good to me.

Oh, by the way, the best pun i've heard in quite a while has got to be: "The vending machine doesn't take Spider-Sense."

In this world of (mostly) mean and obscene spider-memes, long live The Blue Ear!

Looking back: Nerd Christmas // Looking forward: #Woodcock100

It’s been a memorable festive season for dorks like me. 

First there was the Van Fan Expo (“Vancouver’s first major Comicon”). Which was basically just a very long line of people in awesome costumes, but nevertheless counts, i think, as a big success. There can be no doubt now that local demand for such events is high. 

The good people of the 501st Legion were inviting toddlers for a free photo with Darth Vader. It was fun to see my little buddy up there all chillin' with the sith lord (but for me, the whole “I am your father” thing now seems even more spooky). 

But as if that wasn’t cool enough, i went on to the BIG one: the Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo! Holy crap, that was crazy. Not only were the lineups long and slow, but on Saturday the place was total chaos. 

I swear it looked exactly like that all day long. 

The Fire Marshall eventually shut the doors. Some people with prepaid passes stepped out for a smoke and couldn't get back in. They were pissed, of course. And it was all over the news that night. 

Having arrived early and remained inside, i was only dimly aware of the drama. I waded through the mosh pit and attended panels on writing and publishing.

By the next morning, those Expo folks had things sorted out (some pulled an all-nighter). Saturday was a catastrophe, but Sunday was smooth and orderly. Better signage and coordination made a huge difference. Overall: spectacular. Despite (severely) underestimating crowds and undertraining volunteers, they brought an ambitious plan to life.

Which brings me to the Star Trek TNG reunion… there’s really nothing i can say. Laughter. Tears. Rapture. The works. What an inspiring assemblage of humans. ’Nuff said.

But that was Saturday night, and i haven't even mentioned the biggest thrill of all, which began Saturday morning and lasted until Monday — with a long, painful catharsis in between. 

Of course, i’m talking about meeting Stan Lee. Just one three-hour lineup and i got his autograph on my copy of Fantastic Four #72 (classic Silver Surfer story).

Unprecedentedly, i sent it to get slabbed by CGC. 

  
I'll die before i sell my precious, but curiosity won. I consulted the oracle. It was somehow satisfying to see what the market has ruled: FF #72 (CGC grade 9.8) Fetches Eye-Popping $25,389. Of course, my copy is nowhere near mint condition. I have no idea what magic number they'll assign it. I’ve read the descriptions of each grade... I guess it could be anywhere from 3 to 7. A fellow in the UK also had one signed by Lee (CGC grade 6.5); he was asking  £475.00 (~$760.00 CDN). Interesting.

  
While i was poking around i saw this amazing 3D poster of the cover, and some guy’s impressive compilation of Surfer highlights.

  
Another three hours on Sunday earned me a photo with Stan.

The photographer was an ass. Clicked without a word of warning. What? I asked if he could click once more, with me and Stan at the ready; he just shook his head and gestured to the next person in line. The next person was Spider-Man. 

  
I waited in line for my print, wishing i had also worn a mask. When i beheld my unflattering 8x10, the evidence of a photographer’s indifference, i felt utterly deflated.

I'd been looking forward to that moment for months; but there was no way i'd be sharing the embarrassing result with anyone. (Yes i'm vain. So sue me. Why else besides vanity would i pay to pose for photos in the first place?) Exhausted, overstimulated, i collapsed on a bench in the Corral. After moping a while, I sad-walked through the stands for the final guests on the main stage: Stan (again), James Marsters, and Sir Patrick Stewart. The stars shone brightly until, with a sigh and a whimper on my part, it was over.

Mom picked me up. Sure, i said: it was fun. But leaving without my prize of a great picture with The Man was a huge bummer. I stuffed the "candid" image away... didn’t look at it again. 

But this story has a happy ending.

Monday morning i reluctantly logged in to the Expo website. Figured i should download my .jpg despite its ugliness. After grabbing it, i thought: Hey, might as well get the next one too: i knew the photo after mine, in numerical sequence, would be the Spider-Man with whom i'd stood in line. So, adding 1 to my own number, i clicked. 

What appeared? Not Stan and Spidey: Stan and me! WTF? That stonefaced shutterbug had indeed taken two shots. There it was. My disappointment disappeared. Whoosh!

The picture is no masterpiece. (Stan’s lips are saying "Sure," he'd oblige me with a thumbs-up. He did — an instant after the click. And as Asshole Adams shooed me away, Stan, with that same patented affability, shrugged "Sorry.") But it’s there. Me and Stan Lee. Stan Lee and me. Together. Looking more or less totally human. For reals. 

So... that was a massive detour through vanity, but what the hell else are blogs for? Anyway, my superhero Hanukkah was hardly halfway over! There were three more celebrations to come:

1) Comicon: The Movie
2) May the 4th — Star Wars Day *and* the Avengers premier!
3) Free Comic Book Day

There are two Joss Whedon movies now in theatres! Avengers deserves an entire post of its own. (Best comic movie ever is a major understatement.) Whedon also co-produced Comicon with none other than the ubiquitous Mr. Lee himself. The two of them have several of the best lines in the film, but Kevin Smith, unsurprisingly, steals the show (with side-splitting cracks at himself and the whole nerd world). Oh and i recently found a cool dissertation on “Kevin Smith and Queerness.”

~

Now i have my work cut out for me — in that other life of mine, as an anarchist philosopher — celebrating the momentous centenary of the late great man of letters, George Woodcock (1912-1995), my admiration of whom i have already proclaimed. Maybe i’ll Photoshop myself into a picture with him too.

I’ve started putting stuff about him (and the event where i’ll join several much more worthy authors onstage for brief readings in his honour) at Woodcock100.ca

ttfn.

Life's a happy song

Yesterday was my birthday. Tomorrow is the last day of my (amazing) job at SFU. Today therefore seems like a particularly propitious moment for reflection and contemplation. Not a lot of time for either though. (Incidentally, i learned the word propitious from Christopher Hitchens. In the introduction to his Letters to a Young Contrarian, which i’ve been re-reading, he wrote that “It's too much to expect to live in an age that is actually propitious for dissent.”)

If last year was the most turbulent, this year has certainly been the most transformative of my life, so far. I’ve learned a lot, and grown (very painfully) too. My experience facilitating classes and tutoring the learners in the Community Capacity Building certificate program has been crucial to many of the personal changes. It’s been an overwhelming honour to work with such an incredible team of educators, and to be a part of such an inspiring project.

It seems more than a little ironic to say so in a blog, but one of the biggest and most important shifts to take place this year is that i’ve been learning to keep more things to myself. ('Nuff said.)

Anyway, looking back, it was exactly one year ago yesterday that i won first place in my first round of UBC’s inaugural 3MT (Three-Minute Thesis) competition. I realized this morning that i never even mentioned it here, so i’ll embed the video.






I was also interviewed for the Education Studies departmental website a few months later, and so here’s a video of “highlights” from that interview.




And while i’m at it, i might as well post the video that best captures my feelings about having survived the age of 33.




I was glad to see The Muppets acknowledged with an Academy Award this year. The film’s theme of growing up spoke, and sang, to me in a profoundly personal way. The best thing i can say is that, along with growing up a bit this year, i’ve also been reconnected with the sense of wonder and benign fortuity that, prior to a period of precipitous emotional overwhelmitude (which mercifully seems to have passed), had been such a big part of my life for so long.

One of Roy’s favourite words these days is “maybe.” It really can be applied in almost any context. I like hearing it. He wished me happy birthday last night. And when i ask myself: will this year be the best one yet? I think he knows the answer.

Another iteration

It's election day in Vancouver, and once again, in the spirit of harm reduction, i'll be plugging my nose with one hand and letting pragmatism guide the other one, as i step into the polling station. My heart is with the #Occupy movement, and i'm unhappy, of course, with the obtuseness of Mayor Robertson's assertion that "It's time for the encampment to end." It's distastefully disingenuous for him to dismiss the legitimate value, both in principle and in practice, of the occupation.

Naturally, i have my own doubts and concerns about #OccupyEverything; as usual, i think there are important questions being raised by critics, skeptics, and outsiders. However the movement's openness invites creative reflection: the idea that we are all part of it, the 99%, rings true — and reminds me of how inspired i was, and still am, by the radically inclusive rhetoric of the Zapatistas. I was one of the thousands who came out for the initial #Occupy gathering at the Art Gallery. In the weeks since, i've been reading and thinking a lot about it. Steve Collis has written eloquently and thoughtfully about his experiences of #Occupy, and his words have stuck with me.

This morning i was reading about the recent legal proceedings, and the defense lawyers' argument that the #OccupyVancouver camp should  be allowed to remain because it is serving as a homeless shelter. It has also served as a gathering place where (homeless people and) activists can re-imagine community together. It reminded me of how Colin Ward described the history of the Tredegar Medical Aid Society in England (in his Very Short Introduction to anarchism, page 27). What would be possible if #Occupy were recognized as a place for experimental provision of services?

I've been impressed with some of the current City Council's accomplishments, including their efforts to house the homeless; i've especially liked Councilor Kerry Jang's statements challenging NIMBYish opposition. And for that i think they deserve more time, so i'll put an [X] beside Gregor Robertson's name on my ballot today. I see potential for further progress through a continuation of their work; but mostly i'm aware of the potential damage that an Anton/NPA council could do. Obviously, Anton is the only mayoral candidate with anything close to the support base needed to win an election, so even if i was completely persuaded that someone else deserved the job, under current circumstances i can only vote for "the juice man" and his team. I'll also be supporting the COPE slate, and my friend Nicole Benson. I urge you all to do the same.

As we witness (and/or participate in) this next iteration of municipal politics, another cycle of time has been completed in my own little world. One week ago today, Roy blew out his candles on a vegan peanut-butter-chocolate cake in the company of some amazing friends and family. To top it all of with another reason to celebrate, we (finally!) got into a housing co-op. (Sigh of relief.) I was asked yesterday if having a child has changed my perspective by keeping me "grounded." I sure hope so.

Thanks (to a man i admire)

It’s that season of solemn / ecstatic gratitude again, but i can’t bear to think about how lucky i’ve been this year (even though it’s been one of the hardest of my life), so rather than succumb to an inevitable paralysis of shame, perhaps i’ll steer away from personal matters and put forward an example of that for which any lover of beautiful, elegant prose can give thanks: a thick steak of pith.  

A few months ago, after exhuming it from the bottom shelf, behind a box, in a dusty basement corner of the venerable MacLeod’s (Vancouver’s oracle of lost, obscure and precious books), i sat down and began reading a short literary biography of one of the writers, and one of the men (i use the word consciously — it seems that, by far, most of my favourite thinkers and writers are women) whom i most admire: George Woodcock. I was just two or three stiff, yellow pages in when i began to feel new stirrings of affection, both for the subject and the biographer, Peter Hughes. Several of Hughes’ evocative phrases have stayed with me throughout the busy days since i first luxuriated in his prose, so i’d like to share a few paragraphs with you, my dear friends on the interwebs. Enjoy!

From Peter Hughes’ biography of George Woodcock
1974, McClelland & Stewart

     Soon after Peking and Washington refused him visas because of his anarchist involvements, the New Left attacked him as a reactionary because he questioned some of its despotic and philistine tendencies.^[2] Few writers could make that claim. Fewer still would want to.

     One of the few might be George Orwell, Woodcock’s friend and the subject of his finest biography. He too was awkwardly independent and paid for his integrity by living a “life against odds” that intersected Woodcock’s own life and sympathies at several points. Beyond all the tastes and views they shared, beyond the opinions they fought over — Woodcock was a pacifist, Orwell a fire­-breather, and their acquaintance began in a wartime Partisan Review controversy — both men upheld liberty and decency through writing that escapes all the mandarin categories of literary criticism.  

     Woodcock agrees with and expands the opinion that Orwell’s many works, essays, novels, stories, reportage, political memoirs, whatever their apparent differences in form and genre, are all of one kind. They are all polemic; each one has designs on the reader and tries to make him take sides in a serious dispute.^[3] In works as varied as Homage to Catalonia and Animal Farm that attempt and those designs shape design in its other meaning of literary pattern and form. This notion of kind can also explain the bewildering diversity in Woodcock’s writing; for it helps to reveal the powerful impulses and interests that give consistency and depth to his work. He is not, however, with the exception of a few hectic editorials in his magazine Now, writing polemic. By the time he got down to full-time writing in the postwar forties political anarchism was a lost cause. Now a polemic delivered on behalf of a lost cause is an elegy or an epitaph, and the tone of Woodcock's biographies of the great anarchists is something quite different from either.

     What he really created was a kind that might be called persuasion, which Matthew Arnold somewhere describes as “the only true intellectual art.” It differs from polemic in stressing the good cause to the virtual exclusion of the usual assault on the bad. In reading the life of Kropotkin or Godwin or Proudhon we cannot forget the assorted evils of bourgeois reaction, but we are not allowed to think of them in those hackneyed terms. Most political propaganda allows nothing except hackneyed words and ideas. 

I was going to end there, because i think that last sentence deserves to echo throughout the land, however i’ll include a few more lest any reader be left with an impression of Woodcock that fails to capture his depth:

One result is the corruption of language through slogans, a process traced by Orwell in one of his essays. Another result is the erosion of independent thought in our time by what Woodcock attacks in an essay as “The Political Myth.” We shall see how deep and complex his writings about myth really are, but we should not be surprised that something as collective, irrefutable, and overpowering as myth would make Woodcock uneasy. It substitutes one kind of visceral appeal or another for persuasion, and tramples under truth, common sense, and liberty to satisfy a mass impulse.

…Wasn’t that tasty?

----------------
Postscript:
I had no idea that David Suzuki was this year's winner of the George Woodcock lifetime achievement award! Check out this great picture of him with Margaret Atwood. 

read about it here.

: )

Border guards make broken hearts (an essay on Love*)

*and friendship, and stupidity.

Yes. My passport is expired. 

It didn’t seem to matter last weekend, when Sara and i drove down to Seattle with Roy in the back seat. He waved gleefully out the window at the border guard, toddler-shouting: “Hi! … Hi!” 

She smiled, waved back, and sent us on our merry way. 

Not so yesterday, when i arrived at the train station, without a car, without a female companion, and without a smiling child to distract from my otherwise obvious malevolent criminality. My mom was babysitting Roy. Sara was already in Seattle; she’d had the day off and went shopping. Her own expired passport had (again) presented no obstacle when she crossed the border in a rented vehicle after breakfast. But i was just one lowly soul in the long line waiting to board a sold-out southbound evening train.

A thick-necked man’s body filled the blue uniform that sat in front of me. It delivered an error message with affectless automaticity:

[ … EXPIRED … ].

Me: “Yes, but we were allowed to cross just last weekend…”

(A refreshed error message displays on the face-like screen of the man-like interface.)

Me: “But… it’s our anniversary.”

Of course, Americans might be forgiven for fixating mechanically on their own unromantic anniversary this weekend. Forgiving them, however, does not imply ignoring or excusing the folly of their fear-based policies. 

Two hours earlier, i had exchanged goodbyes with my new co-workers, each of whom, in their loveliness, offered thoughtful acknowledgments of the reason for my planned weekend retreat. (“Eight years! Congratulations. That takes a lot of work.”) We know friendship is a species of love, because it sees the world in those terms.

Tomorrow marks the earth’s eighth orbit since a day that changed my life irrevocably… when i sat down next to a very pretty girl on the bus. 

~~~

When i met Sara, i was immediately disarmed and enchanted. Our conversation began on the long commute up to Burnaby Mountain, and continued through the morning into the afternoon. It became an email exchange late that night, and a phone call the following evening — a call that lasted until morning. 

Two days later, we met after sunset at the east end of False Creek, to walk and talk. And to stop in a symmetrical spot along the seawall, to share a long, luxurious embrace that became an unprecedented, soft, delicious kiss that turned the air around us into curtains of private twilight. The autumn evening felt like spring, and we slow-danced under the Granville bridge.

I fell, like a cartoon anvil, in love. 

Today, eight years later — after innumerable arguments; unfathomable fights; accumulated silences that seemed like they might never end; disagreements that may remain unresolved eternally; misunderstandings mistaken for evidence of hopelessly opposed perspectives; after entering into the covenant of parenthood, braving storms of joy and horror in that responsibility; drowning together in love for our son; rediscovering time in his generous hugs; suffering the damage of subconscious conflicts; healing from hurtful outbursts; comforting each other after nightmares; continuing to excavate ever-greater vulnerabilities; clinging to shared hopes for the security of co-created lives; through euphoric sex and torturous monogamy, maintaining the danger that fuels passion; through gifts and rifts, impasses and apologies — i’m still falling.

Falling in love, banging my head on every protrusion on the endless way down.

If i wasn’t still falling in love, or following love’s spiral path, how could i ever tolerate the ubiquitous, outrageous, infuriating absurdity of human beings? How could i endure the indignities of life in a kafkaesque labyrinth of congealed stupidity and laziness? Without love, how else could someone as arrogant and eccentric, as sensitive and confused as me, ever survive? 

If i wasn’t in love yesterday, how could i have persevered in the face of that chorus of uniformed morons impassively reciting an incoherent script of indifferent bureaucratese, conveying an empty and cynical lie about consistent principles and processes, and the hallmarks of a good, orderly society?

What else besides love can insulate our hearts from the incessant bombardment of hollow, pernicious pieties meant to persuade us that love matters less than polite deference to the arbitrary caprices of authority?

~~~

In an hour or two, i will meet Sara somewhere near the border. 

Somehow, we will salvage this celebration, and renew our belief in a romantic ideal. We will do what we can to rekindle the furnace of an unreasonable dream that demands everything from us — impossible patience; superhuman reserves of sheer blind, stubborn will; and an endless acceptance of daily, sometimes deep, disappointments — all in exchange for just one (rare) reward: a fleeting experience of infinite truth, beauty, certainty, splendour and peace. 

Each drop of such relief offsets at least eight weeks of the cruel, stupid, drudgery that constitutes most moments of our otherwise intolerable and (almost) worthless lives. 

~~~

Postscript:

The cosmic truth revealed?

the awful truth about my youth

last night i had a dream
i revisited the past


i could feel all of the pain but
i couldn’t change the fact that


i could feel all of the shame but
everything was still an act


i could feel all of the loneliness but
i couldn’t make contact


i woke up with a song 
and (maybe) clarity at last


it went: “life is a delivery 
you never wanna get back…

My son was bullied yesterday...

My son was bullied yesterday. By another toddler. At the playground right around the corner from our home — where we play every day. The other kid, only two months older than Roy, first dumped a shovel-full of sand and gravel on Roy's head. His mom, who was nearby, tried to respond appropriately — she picked him up and took him away telling him that was not ok, etc. 

Roy just stood there. Looking scared and sad.

I can't express the terrible feeling i have now, writing these words. The feeling i had at that moment. The feeling i've had ever since. It's just a fucking evil, horrible pain in my heart. I can't bear to let myself feel it for long. It will paralyze me if i don't fight it.

I tried to comfort Roy. I hugged and kissed him. I told him that was a very mean thing that other boy did to him. I tried to brush dirt and gravel out of his hair (there was too much). 

"Dirt." He said. Pointing his little index finger at his beautiful head, with his beautiful lips in a little frown.

I am dying and killing monsters on a battlefield in my mind. I am calm, fucking psychotically calm, on the outside.

"I know," I say. "Dirt." "That was mean."

Borrowing the language of the "Safe Spaces" program, which i've only heard of through Roy's (awesome) daycare provider, i tell Roy: "That was not safe." 

"Dirt." He said.

A few minutes later, after having made a gesture of apology (a gentle hand on Roy’s face) under the focussed direction of his mom, the same kid walked past Roy and pushed him. To the ground.

I am tearing flesh from the bones of burning demons in a volcano of pure evil. I am vomiting oceans of blood and crushing my skull with my fists. 

I am calm.

The other boy’s mother removes the aggressor. This apparently incorrigible repeat offender. She carries him home. She is telling him he can’t play anymore, etc.

My son is silent. 

Or i'm deaf.

~~~

Prior to all this i had been describing — to the bully's mom — some of the insights i’ve gained into childhood aggression through a DVD (Aggression in Young Children: The Interactive Guide to Observing, Understanding and Intervening) based on research by Professors Richard E. Tremblay and Jean Gervais (more info here). Is this irony?

~~~

Roy woke up in the night, upset. I went to him, as i always do because i’m a much lighter sleeper than Sara. But Roy wanted her. He needed her, not me. 

I’m cold and scared. I need her too. 

Before going back to bed, i stare at a picture of him, taken on our way back from the park. Does he look at me differently now? 

I’m trying to hold on… to something… hope.  

But it’s slipping: I’ve failed to protect him. My son! This world is full of hurt and unfairness and cruelty sometimes and i can’t keep it from affecting him... Or me.

(I was supposed to change the world and make everything right before this could happen!)

I had evil, violent nightmares. All night.

Oh, God… gods… anyone. What are we going to do?

Renaissance

I think i’ve mentioned it before: my vague ambition to someday write a book (or something) about the "Maple Ridge Renaissance" (a strangely localized explosion of creative brilliance i witnessed among friends and acquaintances in the late 90s, which continues to inspire me today). I was reminded of that project this morning, while reflecting on recent events in my personal life.

An obvious point of reference is my birthday. I’ve been 33 for three days now… and i’ve been feeling compelled (by some numerological and nostalgic impulse) to write a list of reasons why Back to the Future Part 3 was such a dismally disappointing movie. But of course Roger Ebert has taken care of that for me. And, as i should have expected, he did better than that; he concludes with the following wisdom:

“The one thing that remains constant in all of the "Back to the Future" movies, and which I especially like, is a sort of bittersweet, elegiac quality involving romance and time. In the first movie, McFly went back in time to be certain his parents had their first date. The second involved his own romance. The third involves Doc Brown and Clara. In all of these stories, there is the realization that love depends entirely on time. Lovers like to think their love is eternal.

But do they ever realize it depends entirely on temporal coincidence, since, if they were not alive at the same time, romance hardly would be feasible?”

Ebert, as always, demonstrates the rich rewards of applying genius attention to ostensibly mundane material. And Ebert is, obviously, a genius in the classic sense: i predict he will be honored posthumously as one of the greatest writers of the modern era. His reviews remind me of Walter Benjamin’s insightful sensitivity and awareness of the latent significance in each layer of life’s routine scrapheap.

So my inexplicable resurgent fascination with Back to the Future — a cinematic mythos that dramatically shaped my imaginative horizons — during the days before and after my birthday, serendipitously led me to Ebert’s brilliant soliloquy about love, which speaks directly and eloquently to the tide of feelings that has lately both buoyed my spirits and flooded my fearful heart.

I have always tried to live with appreciation of luck. I have said hundreds of times, over many, many years, that i must be one of the luckiest people on Earth. The reasons keep piling up, and my fascination with fortune deepens with my appreciation.

I have a lot to be grateful for; now more than ever.

After everything i’ve put her through, Sara still welcomes me into her life, and loves me with a gentle generosity i feel profoundly unworthy of.

She made me a Christmas-themed birthday: filled my stocking with chocolate and comic books, and baked me a Guinness / Black Forest cake. And Roy gave me Duplo that we can play with together, along with the most precious hugs and kisses a dad could ask for.

I don’t know how or why i am so fortunate, but i desperately want to do what’s right with all i’ve been given.

As i continue to work on refining my purpose, i look forward to my days and nights with this family — luxuriating in simple quotidian pleasures like eating, watching movies, and playing. And with time, i’ll get better at moving through turbulent feelings, including my fear that it’s all just a dream.

Robots Revisited

Continuing where i left off last time: I just stumbled upon the two awesomest things in the world.

1) the video for Dan Mangan's awesome song ROBOTS:



Yeah. It made me cry... (Like that's hard, but still).

2) This TEDtalks video: Cynthia Breazeal on "The rise of personal robots":




See? I told you so.

my heart... beeps

Today is the 90th anniversary of the word ROBOT. What better way to commemorate it than by ignoring all of my messy, confusing emotional difficulties and concentrating on the (apparently) tidy world of technology?

This week i:

• installed a new (bigger, faster) hard drive in my MacBook (after cloning my old one, to be safe).
• installed a ton of new RAM — quadrupled my memory!*

Then:

Today at work (i really love helping people solve computer problems) i managed to help a prof get her weird old Toshiba laptop working with the new projectors (had to fiddle around with the [Windows XP] displays control panel a bit; for some reason it would only work as extended desktop, not mirroring).


…and then (still at work) i used screen sharing (via MobileMe remote access) to copy files and do stuff on my iMac at home — which also enabled me to use Safari on my iMac to Google workarounds when Safari started to hang  on my MacBook (BBoD for like 20 minutes). That’s how i found this sweet Terminal command that kills the Flash plugin: bringing Safari back to life without having to quit and reopen all my 40 windows. Yay!

Then i scanned an old Herbert Read essay (about art, of course) so i can read it on my iPad.

i love computers.


*sort of, in theory... My MacBook now reports having 8GB RAM, but it seems that only 6GB can actually be addressed by the system. That’s fine, though. Based on a few days of giving this machine a good workout, it looks like a little under 4GB is what i actually “need” on a regular basis (and anything more is just elbow room). Oh and yes, of course: i always enjoy talking about RAM.

Stuff That’s Happened (an incomplete list)

Been a long time. (Eight weeks?! In twitter-time that’s like… eons.) By now, this old-fashioned blog might as well be an ancient ruin… or an abandoned laboratory in some obscure secret location… full of dust… and zombies.
 
What can be said after so long? How could i communicate (in anything but the most crudely inadequate terms) even only those normal and inevitable upheavals that are bound to have taken place — let alone any radical changes in my life / circumstances? Faced with the impossibility of a smooth continuity, there is (always) a temptation to just flip the table over and start fresh…
 
But i’ve kept coming back to this same space, to catalogue my thoughts here, for so long (and through so many mutations) that it seems like it would be an unnecessary formalistic pretense to close this blog and begin a new one. Besides, doing so would simply present a host of similar challenges: rather than struggling with how to continue i would struggle with how to begin… What’s the difference, really?
 
I don’t know.
 
So here’s a slanted and heavily expurgated, roughly chronological recap:
 

 • I decided to take a more conscious and active interest in my physical well-being (eg: to consult medical professionals about my multifarious idiopathic afflictions).
 
 • Roy celebrated his first birthday (a million friends came to visit; of course i took no pictures).
 
 • Admirers of Voltairine de Cleyre celebrated her 144th birthday (my comment was published on her memorial site).
 
 • Roy got an ear infection and became even more adorable than usual, due to increased need for snuggles.
 
 • Apple (finally!) released iOS 4.2 (and iPad users heaved a sigh of relief).
 
 • I befriended a superhero.
 
 • Wayde Compton launched a new book, in which (among other things) he coins the brilliant term “pheneticizing.”
 
 • New life forms were discovered, here on Earth, whose (arsenic-based) DNA is unlike anything previously known to exist.
 
 • I began to experience an (agonizing / euphoric) emotional breakdown / (re)awakening.
 
 • Roy started walking, almost… (he’ll walk with me, if i hold both his hands).
 
 • Admirers of Super Mario Bros. celebrated the 25th anniversary of the original game.
 
 • I wrote one of the best essays of my career as a student, and it nearly killed me.
 
 • Roy got another ear infection and we spent three hours at the Children’s Hospital on Christmas Eve.
 

 • I started to realize i don’t know who i am (anymore).

Not to mention dozens of significant political events and occasions. But this ain’t a freaking newspaper. Geez.

Maybe i’ll fill in some of the gaps, later. Or maybe i’ll just stick to movie reviews… I’m gonna give myself until next year to figure everything out. (I’m up for a challenge.)

Peace, Love and Understanding

I'll keep this post short, without getting distracted.

I've just spent an hour or so learning about the Understanding Campaign. It's an interesting idea, based on an appealingly simple premise.

In their words, "The Understanding Campaign wants everyone in the world to read just one word of Arabic." (Of course they don't mean only one word and no more, but let's not get tangled up that kind of analysis.) If i understand them correctly, i think they're suggesting something not only unobjectionable, but, as a speaker of the university prestige dialect might say: "positively counter-hegemonic".

After reading their site, listening to interviews, watching videos, and otherwise attempting to see the campaign in context, i would put it this way: the implication (and i think they're right, BTW) is that, basically, if lots of people everywhere, but especially in the U.S. and English-speaking countries, learn the Arabic word for "understanding", then we would be one small, but concrete step closer to a world free from conflicts based on ignorance and fear.

Lovely, you might say. Ok, but the reason i'm staying up past my bedtime to share this pleasant little discovery is that the Understanding Campaign is actually at a crucial point. 

The founders are serious about making their nice idea a reality. Specifically, they want to facilitate a literary exchange with university students in Iraq, and so they have engaged with Kickstarter (which i hadn't heard of before but sounds awesome), a "funding platform for creative projects" — you can read about it for yourself, but it strikes me as similar in spirit to Proudhon's economic ideas.

In accordance with the Kickstarter process, a group proposes a project and sets a dollar amount that would allow it to go forward, then they set a date by which they think they can convince enough people to pledge that much money. But no money changes hands unless they are successful! (It's a sensible way to run things, because it allows people to pledge funding to anything that they think is cool, with no risk that their money will go to a project that never gets off the ground).

The Understanding Campaign has received 242 pledges that tally up to about 92% of its funding goal. However, as of right now the campaign has less than 63 hours left to reach its goal before the deadline (Thursday afternoon).

So i'm writing this to say: i think the Understanding Campaign is a cool idea and that their project should be given a chance to go ahead. They want to print some stickers and exchange books and ideas between North America and the Middle East; it won't cost a lot of money to get started, but it will take some (their goal is $10,000 USD).

People who pledge get stuff, too. I'm getting a T-shirt.

It shouldn't be too hard to get pledges for the last few hundred dollars in the next couple of days, but it would suck if after all they've done so far, they're left with just a good idea and some new friends. That's not nothing, of course — in a way, that's the point: good ideas and new friends are great things — but the people behind the campaign are very close to starting something far greater.

فهم

That's the word. Spread it around.

The Grateful Dad

Another festive occasion… another festering controversy? Thankfully, in Canada, we don’t officially commemorate a conquest every autumn...

“We” (though ‘we’ must never tire of reminding ourselves that ‘our’ deficient language, English, fails to distinguish {lexically} between the inclusive and exclusive senses of that pronoun — the ambiguity of which facilitates both insidious and simple confusion) just give thanks.

I won’t try to untangle the question (let alone assume an answer, or proceed to apologize for it) of just who this elusive, unstable thanks-giving “we” might be. I’ll try, rather, to speak only for myself:

Today, i give thanks.

I hope not to strike a moralistic pose: the world doesn’t need another lecture about the virtue of gratitude. But i am feeling very grateful today.

Sara’s mom paid us a visit this weekend, and babysat Roy last night. We therefore had our first real date (as in: an evening out, alone) since he was born, almost eleven months ago. 

Eleven months between dates (or longer, given the nature of ‘dating’ during pregnancy…) is a bloody long time. It was weird, because we were both a little worried about Roy (would he freak out?). Turns out he did pretty well. He cried a bit, and stayed up too late, but eventually took his bottle and fell asleep.

Meanwhile, we bought snacks and went to a movie. A late show. It was like being in our twenties again!  ;)

We saw Never Let Me Go. 

Let me just say this:  O.M.G.
And, furthermore:     Holy. Fucking. Shit. 

Someone at TIME magazine called it “a plea to live and love well” — the story is a whole lot more unsettling, and better, than that  (rather pedestrian and Hallmark-ish) sentence suggests, but it’s true enough. This movie is far better than whatever the best things written about it say. And since the worst things written about it all seem to say the same thing — that the movie's not quite as good as the book — i’ve decided i have no choice but to prioritize the consumption of the original novel (i might get the audiobook from iTunes, or download the e-book, for easy and immediate access).

The story haunted my sleep and stayed with me all day: on our walk with Roy through Jericho Park, on my bus ride to Granville Island to buy pumpkin beer (verdict: it sounded like a good idea), and throughout our Tofurkey feast this evening, i have continued to hear echoes (and see shadows) from Kazuo Ishiguro’s world…

It boils down to this: while the dystopian horrors of a fictional society are good metaphors for the injustices of our own, what we must confront, in the end, is the ‘injustice’ of all mortal existence.

Death itself is not (necessarily) unjust, at least not for each of us as we face the inevitable ourselves. It is most unjust while we live — with the loss and the absence of others whom we loved.

About two weeks ago, i learned of an old friend’s passing... The inarticulate numbness that came with the news has been slowing me down lately. Maybe that’s a good thing...? But when my brother told me that Solomon Burke died this morning, it seemed even more important to write a short acknowledgement of today's persistent feelings.

I am so grateful for all that i have in my life right now. For my family, our health, our happiness (despite the challenges), and our love. The relative freedom and security that makes these things possible is also not to be taken for granted (nor should it be romanticized, as greater and more perfect than it is); however, at the moment, i just want to express thanks.

In particular: Thank you Solomon Burke, for your voice and your songs — and especially for the 2-disc Soul Alive! concert album. Thank you to CFRO/Co-op Radio for introducing me to Burke so many years ago. And thank you Shane, for telling me about Burke’s passing.

And thank you David Phillips, for all the joy you brought to your friends and community over the years; all the feasts and dancing; all the great conversations and flowers and ‘trespassing’ adventures. I will miss you. Roy will hear the legends. 

Rage, Baby, Rage

An epic tale of bedtime.

“[I'd like] ...to remind the reader of... the defiant animal faith that each new baby brings back into the world with the very act of birth” — Lewis Mumford.

Well it’s October. Summer is history (all these sunny afternoons notwithstanding) and the autumnal transition period is also behind us. It’s been a bumpy ride.

There's a lot going on: between Roy’s teething (and switching to more solid foods) and growing, and catching a mild cold (which interfered with the poor guy’s already disrupted sleep patterns), plus his rapidly increasing mobility, and his increasingly complex and confident vocalizations — along with his recent discovery of a hitherto unsuspected aptitude for sudden fits of actual baby-like crying. Not to mention the beginning of my “final” semester (of coursework, while my thesis looms) and the daunting preparations for the end of Sara’s maternity leave, with all of the adjustments that will require…

You could say we’re feeling some pressure.

Still, every day has interludes of serenity and joy. Our brief visit with some dear friends and their newborn daughter was a highlight last week:

(Congratulations Matty & Lara — and welcome to the world, Hunter!) 

However, the moments of tranquility and levity have seemed further apart lately — savory nuggets of serendipity in a congealing temporal and emotional soup of stress and exhaustion. (*Sigh.*)

I'm settling into my new routine, including this part-time job with Computing & Media Services at UBC (why yes, i can look up the password you forgot; sure, i can help you set up that projector...  it’s actually pretty fun, especially when i get to help people learn stuff, or troubleshoot problems i don’t already know how to solve). Mostly i’m trying to get into the habit of writing consistently throughout the week.

That way i can methodically chip away at sections of my thesis while “sharpening the saw” (in Covey-speak) and making incremental progress on other writing projects. One part of my writing-action-plan will be to sustain a pace of production for this blog, and to strike a balance between the passions from which it springs...

Which reminds me: a friend recently published what, according to the reviews, sounds like a fantastic poetry book, inspired by Jack Spicer. I’ve yet to get a copy, but i should do so soon — now, if ever, i need to make time for poetry.

Anyway, today i was just going to post a quick update, along with two tidbits of parenting info, however Roy’s struggle this evening at bedtime prompted a more substantial reflection.

First the easy part.

I wanted to share some information that contributed to our decision (many months ago) to take Roy out of swimming class — even though it was lots of fun.

A study described here apparently indicated a significant correlation of infant exposure to chlorinated pools and bronchiolitis infection, which in turn increases the risk of chronic respiratory problems including asthma. I’ve been meaning to mention it here, since we decided it sounded persuasive enough to warrant a precautionary withdrawal.

The full peer-reviewed article is “available” (for $15 USD) here. Actually, even with free access to academic journals through UBC, the online version won't be unlocked until 18 months after its publication. (I promised myself i would not get sidetracked and launch into a rant about the despicable stupidity of the academic publishing industry's restrictions on public access... Because that's not what this post is about.)

On a happier, less anxious note: i’ve started attending a very cool weekly event for dads (or other male caregivers) and babies at the Vancouver Public Library called “Man in the Moon.” It’s lots of fun, with silly songs and interactive games, and best of all it’s a chance for babies to see other babies and dads to see other dads, all hanging out together.

Roy and i went for the first time two weeks ago, at the Kitsilano branch, and it was absolutely packed. We were officially on the wait list but Marcus, the facilitator, kindly allowed us to stay. Unfortunately Roy’s naptime pre-empted our plan to remain for the whole hour that day, but in a doubleplusgood turn of events, it turns out that the event also takes place two hours later at the Dunbar branch — which isn’t as crowded, so that’s where we will be going on Saturdays from now on. Busy but exciting times.

Anyway, about this evening.

Roy’s been crying a lot more lately. It's kind of surreal, because he hardly ever cried at all, until this week. Things are changing.

There are exciting changes, like when Sara phoned me today (while i was actually making some progress on my writing) to tell me that Roy has started crawling forward (he’s been going in reverse for months) and standing up unassisted!

It’s amazing to see how much he develops even in a single day. But all this change, all this learning and exploring, takes a toll — and our little guy is definitely expressing a greater range of emotions lately. The last few nights, in addition to waking up more frequently, he’s been waking up the whole neighborhood with operatic howls and sobs.

:(

It’s a terrible feeling, when the baby-soothing techniques we’ve used all these months (with such success that we felt a little like the Oilers with Gretzky), suddenly stop working and our adorable little buddy becomes inconsolable.

Since the beginning, our “secret weapon” has been a little melody that Sara composed days after Roy’s birth. We found early on that our duet's simple harmonies had an almost hypnotic power to calm him down... But our musical magic seems to be no match for the feelings brewing in Roy’s heart these days.

This evening, after all our usual bedtime routines, Roy raged against sleep like we had never seen him rage before.

He certainly has stamina. It took hours. Breastfed to the point of bursting, cuddled and cradled in Sara’s arms, he just kept a steady pace of relentless distress. She tried soothing him long enough for me to clean up the whole kitchen and get started on the bathroom; usually he’s passed out before i’m done washing the cutlery.

When Sara finally came out of the bedroom, it was not for a quiet victory dance, but for a shift change. However when i walked in and picked him up, i could tell this wasn’t a crying fit that could be extinguished with a bottle and a lullaby. Nevertheless we had to try something.

So we improvised. It had been a long time since we’d had any kind of difficulty like this, but during Roy’s initial adjustment to life at home, he had seemed to mellow out when i played my harp. So, as terribly clueless as i remain about any sort of proper technique, i started strumming and plucking the heavenly strings.

I wish i could say it worked.

But since nothing seemed to make any difference, i just kept playing anyway, sometimes singing a little, quietly — faintly hoping that, eventually, between his violent wailing cries, he’d catch a note or two and  become distracted. Or simply get tired enough to pass out. Which is what happened i guess. But even after he stopped crying and kicking, his breathing was still punctuated with squeaky little sobs, and it stayed that way for another hour or so.

He ultimately fell asleep in the most ridiculous position a human body of any size could hope to get into: lying horizontally across his crib, his feet dangling out over the side through the bars, his bum up in the air, arms straight, and his face turned to one side.

I couldn’t bring myself to move him though, for fear of awakening the creature from the swamps of sadness. Sara bravely entered his lair and tucked him in. As i write this, his sobbing has finally stopped and Sara and i are sitting on the couch looking slightly less frazzled than Tina Fey and Steve Carrell in the posters for Date Night.

Speaking of which, i’ll end by saying that it was a delightful surprise to hear, earlier this week, that our very friendly neighbors down the hall have generously and spontaneously offered to babysit for us sometime... I can only hope that either they possess very powerful magic, or that our little Roy’s rage phase soon follows summer into the past.

Oh: one more thing, back on the whole awesomeness of being a dad theme… By now everyone on the interwebs has seen it twice, but this scene from Glee is worth a third viewing. There’s no music, but it makes me want to sing.

EDIT: After all that, Roy slept through the night, and woke up (briefly at 6, finally at 8) happy as a clam.

A moving story (with pictures)

Well, it’s Wednesday.

The Rio Theatre’s biweekly “Movies for Mommies” event is today, and Apple’s gonna make some big announcement, too; but i’m skipping the former this time around (to catch up on some work), and i’ll hear all about the latter soon enough, no doubt. No, these things aren’t what makes today special.

For those of us so afflicted, Wednesday means: new Comic Book Day.

Today, for example, Marvel Comics will have a new batch of FREE digital comics ready to be downloaded through its iPad (and iPhone/iPod) app. Every week, Marvel gives away half a dozen issues, just like the proverbial dealer’s narcotics samples, to get us hooked. And it works quite well. Giving me the first issue of a good story arc for *free* makes a pretty compelling temptation to buy the next issue (and the next…).

But, as i shall explain, today is a very special day for comic books…

~~~~~

Last week, on my bus ride home from work, i was enjoying the first issue of an especially good free sample from Marvel: issue #1 of a Spider-Man and Wolverine team-up miniseries — pretty cool in itself, but even better when it starts halfway through some crazy time-travel adventure, with our heroes living amongst proto-human primates on the eve of some prehistoric mass-extinction event. Now that’s entertainment.

Anyway, i wasn’t the only one on the bus to be impressed. Over my shoulder, it turns out, was a member (or friend, at least) of the venerable team behind Vancouver’s own legendary Comic Shop! He seemed both intrigued and somewhat disturbed, however.

“Sales are down,” he told me, “and now i can see why.”

I have to admit, i felt a little guilty. But only a little. After all, i had just spent pretty much all of my remaining discretionary money at the Comicshop only a few days earlier…

Let’s rewind a bit.

~~~~~

About a month ago, again on the bus — that’s where life happens, after all — rolling east on West 4th Avenue, i noticed a huge banner in the Comicshop window declaring a moving sale. I took a photo:

On my way home that day, the crucial question was answered. Moving? Where? …Right into “my” little corner of Kits (i’d soon find out, as noted here, this area is actually where the Comicshop got started too… The old spiraling cycles again). I took another picture, but...

The new storefront was looking pretty rough. It used to be “Fun in the Sun” (a decent discount surf/skate/snow sportswear shop, now located at 4th and MacDonald), which had some kind of reflective film on the windows; i used to stop out front with Roy so we could wave at our reflections. That shiny film had left some funky scum on the window, and all in all, the place sure didn’t have an auspicious, well-cared-for appearance.

We might forgive some people, for example a commenter on this article, for having expressed doubts about the Comic Shop being able to get the new place up to spec in time. A member of the Comicshop team, however, asserted that they would indeed be open: today, September 1st, at 10 AM (and that anyone present for the opening would enjoy a 10% discount). True to their word, when i walked by yesterday evening, the place already looked as good as a Christmas tree. Judge for yourself: photo #3.

But i’m getting ahead of myself...

~~~~~

One quick aside: We have lived here, a short walk from Jericho beach (and the Premier’s office, yay!) ever since our discovery of cheaper rents on this side of town than in those more (covertly) prestigious neighborhoods of East Van. Proximity to UBC has proven a bonus too. Sara’s old place was near Rx Comics on Main Street, which is also a great shop.

So the Comic Shop has moved: from 10 minutes up the road, to less than a minute from my door. Well i sure can’t complain.

But nevertheless there is a feeling of loss. The Comic Shop, in its familiar location a few doors down from Sophie’s Cosmic Café, is where i bought comics on family trips to Vancouver as a kid. It contributed to the mythologization of this city in my mind.

I’ve fallen in love with Vancouver several times, but the courtship began at the Comicshop.

~~~~~

Returning to recent events: when i had some time after first seeing that banner in their window, i checked the Comicshop website, and not only was it a month-long moving sale, but the discounts would increase as the moving day approached!

Now, the fact is, ever since Roy was born, in order to make space for baby necessities, i’ve been trying to eliminate as much of my physical library as possible, including comics. It’s hard. I’ve collected books all my life, and the first items in my collection were comics.

But there are limits, so i have enthusiastically welcomed the advent of iPads (and the iBookstore, as well as other means of acquiring content) as an opportunity, not only to eliminate many physical books (especially academic and reference tomes), but to simultaneously upgrade them: to searchable and completely portable e-books. Exciting times, i say.

But of course these changes don’t look like improvements to everyone.

As i’ve been shifting my comic collection from boxes in the closet to files on my computer, whatever money i spend on comics has also shifted from “brick and mortar” comic shops, to online direct digital sales — and as we know, digital content can also be shared for free, so that’s a factor too.

Generally, i’m an advocate of file-sharing, but i’ll save detailed discussion of the pros and cons of “free” peer-to-peer proliferation vs. higher-quality commercial modes of comic distribution for another post.

Suffice for now to say that i have indeed been persuaded to give Marvel money for digital comics, enhanced with ComiXology’s “guided view” technology (individual panels isolated, each rendered full-screen) which makes reading digital comics effortless — and much more enjoyable than having to navigate through mere scanned images of entire pages. However, i have also acquired many comics through file-sharing networks, especially scans of older issues or less-popular titles that have not yet been made available for purchase (like The Silver Surfer, whom i adore).

No matter what your moral intuitions are about the meaning and future of either content restrictions or copyright itself, i think Cory Doctorow makes some really good points in his anti-iPad rant. And his criticisms of the Marvel app are fair, but he neglects to mention (and, i think, fails to appreciate) how just plain awesome it is. Mr. Doctorow is right, though: the problems are serious. As one commenter (on a Marvel discussion board) put it, describing my situation as well:

“I've bought comics via the Marvel iPad app and the ComiXology app.  I just found out that ComiXology has a website where one can view all the comics you've purchased from them...except the Marvel comics.”

Yup, that’s unfair and stupid. But this is not a day for ranting about DRM (that day will come soon enough). Today is a day to celebrate…

Long story short, constraints of shelf space and finances aside: i happily failed to resist temptation, and grabbed a stack of old back issues at The Comicshop's moving sale — they were going for 80% off! I scored some serious gold. But i’ll brag about  review  my purchases another time.

~~~~~

Questions about what will become of comics, and of comic shops (and the people who run them, and the people who love them), will remain open for quite some time yet. As indeed, i sincerely hope, will Vancouver’s flagship Comic Shop. I wish them luck — i hope they really do live long and prosper.

In particular, i look forward to walking around the new shop with Roy... though it’s hard for me to comprehend the idea that, before long, he’ll be walking in there on his own little feet! I imagine myself, eventually, watching him pick out his own favorite hero stories.

But that’s a few Wednesdays down the road.