What I want to be when I die

I am finishing up this great book I picked up over the Christmas holidays: "Stiff: the Curious Lives of Human Cadavers" by Mary Roach.

While I admit to a penchant for the macabre and eccentric, this was a strangely charming, and oft-hilarious, read. Ms. Roach goes through the history of death and dying and what purposes dead bodies serve after going on to their great repose. Besides the usual anatomy labs and organ donations, corpses also serve as crash-test dummies, gruesome scientific experiments, fuel and--in some cultures still--medicine (salves, edible bits of skin, etc.) The book also details the processes behind death and the ways in which humans try to prolong their bodies' existence with chemicals or mummification.

Most interesting for me are the eco-friendly ways to die that are being offered in many parts of Europe and gaining in popularity worldwide. There's composting, or dissolving bodies in lye, after which the remant goo will swirl down the drain--a sterile, pH-neutral people-syrup.

I've never been one to romanticize my death or what will become of me afterwards. I don't believe I'd feel particularly violated or disrespected to serve a useful purpose as an organ donor or research tool. Besides, even if I became a bit of mellified man, it's not like I'd get too upset: I wouldn't be there to feel pain or indignity, now would I?

Death can be scary: the unknown always is. But without a cultural or religious background to dictate what I'll do with my own, I'd be quite happy to shuffle off this mortal coil allowing others to make the most use out of me before chopping me up and using my bits to grow flowers. I don't need a sealed casket, headstone or urn sitting on someone's fireplace. I find that kind of creepy. My time here is brief, and so I must make the most of it before I return to what I once was: just some random motes assembled into a person.

SATAN!!!.....(for kids)

I know I shouldn't have guffawed when I read this, since I'm fairly certain it's not intended in jest...but it's so horrible and ludicrous, it's hard to stiffle a giggle.

Bettsy sent this my way and I had to share it. If shit like THIS can get published, there really is no stopping me from becoming a bestselling author, now is there?

PS - for Mr. S, my SIL and other teachers I know, here may be the perfect "behave or else" book for kids.

Scene:

"What? You don't want to do your homework? Well let me tell you a story about little Billy here, who didn't do his homework, fell in with a bad crowd and woke up in a circle chanting in tongues....buhuhuwahahahahaha!" (the evil cackle at the end is a must.)

Dear Awful Library Books, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

"Don't Make Me Go Back, Mommy."

(Thanks bunches, Bettsy, this is a joy to behold.)

Writing hero of the moment: Matt Taibbi

Matt Taibbi is an award-winning writer and blogger whom I first discovered while reading his scathingly excellent political articles in Rolling Stone. His words are the precision cutting tools of an expert surgeon and his rage against the machine is palpable.


Here's a great example of his style, which is one part Hunter S. Gonzo and one part "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore". This excerpt's from a blog piece about former governor and Tina Fey-impersonator Sarah Palin:


"...Just as she had during the campaign last fall, Palin defied rational analysis by making a primal connection with the subterranean resentments of white middle America, which is apparently so pissed off now at the rest of the planet for not coddling its hurt feelings in the multicultural age that it is willing to embrace any politician who validates its insane sense of fucked-overness."

Now those are words that grab your throat and screech what's what while flecking your terrified mug with spittle, no?

Rolling Stone is the one magazine I still have a subscription to, and while I'd like to say it's because I'm such a music connoisseur, the truth is I find their political writing incisive and engrossing. Particularly Taibbi, my new writing hero. Check him out:

http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/
www.rollingstone.com

Ayn rand popular in new delhi

Found this super-fascinating article on Foreign Policy's website that explores the takeoff of Objectivism in the world's most populous democracy.

For those unfamiliar with Objectivism, it is a philosophy created by Russian-American writer and thinker Ayn Rand back in the earlier part of the 20th century. Her two most famous works, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, put the Objectivist philosophy into practice, and have had an enormous impact on Western culture in the past half-century. 

Back in high school I read some Objectivist philosophy and found the idea of self-centered idealism rather distasteful. However, in my early 20s I read the Fountainhead and loved it. While I don't enjoy Atlas Shrugged as much (too much beating you about the head with her philosophy--and you may as well skip the last 200 pages) the book has sold more copies than pretty much any book other than the Bible. 

Choice quote from FP article:

"Rand's celebration of independence and personal autonomy has proven to be powerfully subversive in a culture that places great emphasis on conforming to the dictates of family, religion, and tradition...Rand's theory of the supremacy of reason and the virtue of selfishness adds up to "the antithesis" of Indian culture, which explains the attraction for...many rebellious Indian teens today."

In recent years, Rand has fallen out of favour as the economic monolith of the US has collapsed upon itself. In burgeoning democracies like India, however, this newly-discovered philosophy is a runaway hit. It's interesting to see the progression of capitalist ideas in society so completely different than ours in North America. Its impact on future world events could be interesting, especially since 1/6 of the world's population is involved. 

And hey, if nothing else, maybe we'll get a really great, musical number-filled Bollywood version of John Galt's speech. Rousing. 

Anthropologist to modern men: ‘You’re the worst’

Another book to add to my ever-growing reading list. I think I'm at about 150 titles this year. Better get on it.

***

Manthropology: The Science of the Inadequate Modern Male by Peter McAllister.

The National Post published an article by this prominent anthropologist, explaining all the ways in which our bodies suck compared to our ancestors. For those who would use Darwin as means of explaining our superiority to what came before, Mr. McAllister would beg to differ. For all our longevity, nutrition and disease prevention, we're not quite on par with the Olympic-calibre athletes of the past.

See, as our brains get bigger, our bodies get punier and less able to succeed out in the jungle. Kind of makes you wonder what'll happen when the apocalypse is nigh. We'll have mighty strong thumbs from all that video game playing, but otherwise, our soft underbellies will be ripe for the disembowelling.

Take it from someone who's just entered week two of a strenuous bootcamp exercise class: our physical prowess is pathetic. (Also: burpees are the worst form of torture in existence.)

Even fit people aren't as fit as a lazy one-legged cro magnon. We seem to be exercising only one muscle. And while we've succeeded with that muscle beyond any scope our ancestors could have imagined, ignoring the rest of our muscles seems like it could spell trouble for us in our future.

Although, being a head floating in a jar of fluid aboard a spaceship has its perks, I'm sure. If I remember my Futurama correctly, however, things tended to go awry when the heads couldn't get around and were stuck sloshing about in saline.

“We are so inactive these days and have been since the Industrial Revolution really kicked into gear. These people were much more robust than we were." - Peter McAllister

Time to get off the couch and back to being chased across the Serengeti by a pack of lions?

Is there anything they can't do?

Pets rule.

Here's the latest example: a reading program set up by the Edmonton Public Library to encourage literacy in kids six to 12. The Paws for a Story program has volunteers who bring their pets along to read to kids.

Kids reading aloud to an animal develop greater confidence than reading in front of classmates or parents.

"When a child reads to a dog or a cat along with their trained volunteer, they don't have to worry about being judged or corrected based on their skills.It makes learning and practicing reading an enjoyable experience, instead of an intimidating one."

Reading = good. Pets = good. Pets and reading = amazing.

Good boy!

PS - the program mascot's a volunteer's pet Papillon. Just like my Colby. Well...he's a half-Papillon. But a brilliant dog, nonetheless.

Tweeters not Necessarily Bad Spellers

So, according to this article, kids who OMG and ROTFL can LOL at all the h8trs (yours truly) who bewail the death knell of proper English spelling and grammar. According to this, teens who are good spellers can switch into and out of web mode and retain their lexical prowess. Poor spellers are going to be poor spellers, online or offline. Sorry, kids. Maybe you can OLO or LLO? Or you could just go, "ha, ha!" and leave it at that. 

A new book to add to my collection

Behold a masterpiece of mockery:

"The Quotable Douchebag: The 500 Douchiest Things Ever Said" by Margaret McGuire. I require a copy for my shelf.

Choice quotes straight from the egos' mouths:

Gene Simmons: “[I] don’t believe there’s any difference between a monogamous and a polygamous relationship. Those are all just big words, like gymnasium.”

I actually find this one kind of funny. Maybe because I don't take it seriously:

Eminem: "I'm a t-shirt guy now. But wifebeaters won't go out of style, not as long as bitches keep mouthing off."

Why Twilight sucks. Pun intented.

I am on the last book of the series, Breaking Dawn, and still feel a strange combination of fascination and self-loathing every time I turn a page. Curious to see if others shared my repulsive compulsion, I Googled "Why I hate Twilight." A flurry of clicks later, I've amalgamated a series of essays, theories and top 10 lists that helped explain this odd love/loathe experience.

Here are a few that adroitly convey some serious issues that I have with the book:

From Vulpeslibris:

"I had always felt deeply uncomfortable about the way this book portrayed Bella. At the start of the book she seemed pretty clued up, a normal teenage girl. By the end she was a lying, pathetic, characterless stooge and all thorough the actions of one man…Edward Cullen."

Comparison to Harry Potter (the far superior series):
"To put it simply, dear reader, I was horrified. Not just by the sickeningly purple prose or the lack of general writing quality, but the books themselves are insulting on every level--as a woman, as a teenager, as a literature student, and as a graduate of the Harry Potter craze. What’s worse is that so few seem to realize it."

From Blast Magazine: "It is important to note that the heroine should not have to sacrifice anything besides her ambition. If you think she SHOULD sacrifice something, make sure that she’s only giving up her family and friends so that the she can devote her entire life and purpose of being to the hero. She should NOT have any kind of hobbies, interests, etc. outside of the hero, and if he leaves her she should become suicidal."

Wikipedia entry about "Mary Sue", the literary cliche of an author inserting him/herself into a piece of writing by making the main character a transparent version of him/herself.

• The anti-Twilight movement
• Twilight Sucks Homepage
• 95 reasons why you shouldn't read Twilight

Last--but not least:

From Cracked's hilarious sendup of the movie "If Twilight was 10 times shorter and 100 times more honest":

KRISTEN STEWART: Me? Oh, no. I'm just a hollow placeholder for all of the teenage girls in the audience to project their personalities onto. I have none of my own whatsoever.

ROBERT PATTINSON: So, the next generation of young women are currently flocking to see a female lead starring in a movie by a female director based on a bestselling book by a female author, and in this movie the main character wants to become completely submissive and self-sacrificing for a male.

KRISTEN STEWART: I love you. Put a baby in me.

ROBERT PATTINSON: At least the other three books can't possibly be more misogynistic and depressing.

They ARE.
END

Art vs. the Artist

Unlike science, with its hard facts, measurables and logic, art and creative pursuits are subjective. Not that it means an interpretation of a piece of art can't be wrong: it's not an "anything goes" policy, no, no. It is, however, a lot more flexible and filled with minute shades of grey. As one of my university professors explained it:

Interpreting and critiquing the value of a work of art (whether that be a painting or a poem) is like shining a flashlight on a wall. The concentrated beam in the middle represents the realm of possible interpretations, none more or less correct than any other. The closer to the middle you are, the more correct you are. Then as you reach the periphery, it gets fuzzier, until you end up, sometimes inperceptibly, in the dark.

I like that.

In school, I learned many theories and ways to interpret works of art: aesthetic, psychological, personal, historical, etc. One often-contested means of interpretation was to judge a work in relationship to its author/creator.

This makes sense, since a person will inevitably put their influence into a work and will choose subject matter based on their personality, hopes, fears, dreams and dark desires. What comes up for debate, however, is whether you can judge the quality of the work based on the quality of its creator. Does the work stand alone, or does our judgement of it have its basis in our understanding of the artist?

Personally, I'm of the school that says that, regardless of how autobiographical or self-involved a work, a piece of writing or music or art can be judged on its own merit, separate from the creator. Which is important, I believe, when you consider how many artists are also fuck ups and assholes. The creative process is often linked to mental instability and self-involvement. It's what allows the artist to contemplate his soul, dig out a piece and put it on display. It also means, however, that many are addicts, crazies or just, well...bad people.

The artist is not irrelevant to the finished product. However, viewing the end result separately means basing judgement on the merits of the story it tells and how it is told. I mean, Picasso was a misogynist, Charlie Parker a heroin addict and Lewis Carroll loved his 10-year-old neighbour. So you would probably not want to have these guys over for tea and scones. But does that make their art worth less than if they were more staid and virtuous?

These thoughts swirled through my head as I read this article, which details a new book on William Golding, the author of Lord of the Flies. Through research, the biographer discovered that Golding was a rapist. This discovery has shocked readers everywhere and has provoked a call for the book to be removed from junior high school reading lists. Slate's sister website, XX, includes feminist reactions here.

While I find this revelation apalling, I can't say that it changes my mind about Lord of the Flies. Whatever its flaws, I find it to be a tremendous, powerful book that explores the denegration of society through the parable of a group of feral schoolboys. But many others may not be able to look past it. And that's fine for them, I suppose. Though missing out on literature, in my opinion, is sad and, I think, more detrimental to the state of our culture than the fact that this dead author was a bad man.

Thoughts?

I need a shower.

Must...get...clean...

So this weekend, a friend lent me the first two books of the Twilight "saga". Yes, "saga" goes in quotes, because it's not the flippin' Epic of Gilgamesh, it's tween fiction.

I decided to read them so that I could actually qualify my disgust for the books that turned soccer moms into squealing pre-menstrual girls.

I'm about halfway through the first book, which I'm told you must slog through before you start to get swept away in the love story for all time that is Bella and Edward. And I must say that, as difficult as it is to read and hold down vomit simultaneously, it's strangely compelling.

But the writing is bad. So bad. So. Excruciatingly. Awful.

One day soon, I'm going to find my old shoebox filled with angsty poems I wrote in junior high and compare them to Twilight. I swear to you, the language is the same. Explains why kids go cuckoo for it. It's speaking their lovelorn, inexperienced, self-involved language. But to the adult reader, well...it's a little tough to take without a generous helping of Pepto-Bismol.

I've started a running tally of the number of times the words "dazzled", "despair" and "devastated"--and all synonyms--are used. 200 pages in, and I've lost count. Bella, the protagonist, is so helpless, whiny and needy she can't be trusted to go to a beach without drowning. But her "knight in shining skin" is there to sparkle at her and whisper tormented nothings in her ear.

Barf.

I get it. It's a young female fantasy. The dangerous but beautiful, troubled man just looking for the woman to set him straight. But do they need to put it into such clothes-rending, hair-tearing melodramatic terms? Could the author have at least invested in a thesaurus? She beats you into submission with her nauseatingly minute details of this unrequited love, until you cry out, "no more!"

I've been warned about the second book, told that I'll want to poke my eyes out with something pointy to make the agony stop. Tripe.

And don't go saying that "well, Harry Potter is written for young kids, too, and that's also popular." Harry Potter is well-written. Harry Potter uses a variety of words to convey meaning. Harry Potter stands up to Voldemort and saves the day, rather than waiting for Hermione to come to his rescue while he wees himself in the corner. It's great that Twilight is getting kids to read. Maybe next, though, they could, you know, read something good.

Great Irish-American Memoirist, Frank McCourt, Dies

Frank McCourt, who wrote the bestsellers Angela's Ashes and 'Tis died this weekend. Read the NYT article here.

I read these books back in early unversity, probably 2001-2002. Angela's Ashes was well-deserving of its Pulitzer. It was beautifully-written in a nearly tangible prose. You could almost taste the lilting Irish accent in his words.

McCourt was born in Limerick and moved to New York. Both Ireland and New York are places I've visited in the past few years, though both are very different than the places he writes about in the 1930s-1950s.

The Ireland I lived in is so beautiful and was at the peak of the huge economic boom the Celtic Tiger brought. Half the population was under 30 and Dublin was a sea of new immigrants from around the globe. This in contrast to the poverty-stricken place McCourt grew up in, but remnants of that life remained in the attitudes of the Irish I met. Being one generation removed from that sort of third-world life meant a lot of baby-steps in their society that I was fortunate to observe first-hand.

I enjoyed McCourt's writings on Ireland more than his later New York years, but all his works are enjoyable. Angela's Ashes is a bucket-list read, in my opinion. And don't bother with the movie. While I love Robert Carlyle (Begbie in Trainspotting, duh.), it's not enough to really chew on. Something about the Irish and their preponderance for fantastic writing. But that's for another blog post.

New Literary Genre: the Stripper Memoir

Came across this interesting article on Slate.com's XX site. Click here to read about stripper memoirs.

It's interesting that in any given genre what begins as sharp commentary will inevitably dull and become just another innocuous part of popular culture. Like Ozzy going from Prince of f*ing Darkness to bumbling TV dad and progenitor of sullen offspring.

My literary theory's a little rusty, and my focus was never on feminism, but this article intrigued me.

***

First I want to note how I love that "stripper memoir" is now a genre. Like the rock star heroin odyssey or politico fratboy recollection. It's amusing that people who work in an industry based around titillation would write in such a formulaic manner as to be given their own niche. As author Katie Roiphe concludes:

This stylized form of sexuality seems to lend itself to cliché. In all of these memoirs, there is something false in the revelation and mechanical in the execution, that is—if we take the word of these bored and jaded ladies—something like stripping itself.

My two cents (based on article alone, as I have not yet read these memoirs. Will update when I do.)

***

Ah, sex. The alpha and omega taboo, from the beginning of time 'til our inevitable decline, it is the one subject sure to set pens scribbling. I find it intriguing that apparently self-proclaimed modern and liberated women would feel the need to emphasize their ascension above sexual exploitation in their writing.

I'm not a stripper because I choose not to profit off my sexuality, reserving it for my own private endeavours. However, if someone chooses to make money of their own volition, then more power to them. And yes, you can draw the line arbitrarily wherever you want, since it's your body and your psyche. When you reach your comfort limit and say, "enough," fine. But from reading this article I get the impression that there is judgement toward the other types of strippers in these books, the "lifers" as it were. These writers immerse themselves in this existence, yet keep themselves at a remove from it in order to pass judgement and remain "untainted" according to this article. Roiphe says they display the "same innate, catty, female dividing of the world into sluts and non-sluts, that takes place in the rest of the world." If so, weak.

The archetypes of mother/nurturer and whore go way back and are key players in the successful feminist deconstruction of writing, which is overwhelmingly "masculine" or judgmental and limiting. The idea that women fall into one of two archetypes is tenacious in its survival. It seems that even in our liberated 21st century we find the atavistic tendencies return. Sure, they're reconfigured so that the mother/Madonna figure becomes the wholesome "stripper with a heart of gold, putting herself through anthropology courses, one lap dance at a time" and the whore becomes, well...it's the far endpoint of the spectrum, but the whore becomes the more risque stripper who chooses to pursue prostitution or pornography beyond her oeuvre.

I'd be interested to read the memoir of one of these ladies. The hardened lifers who watch the Diablo Codys and Lily Buranas and think to themselves how those pretentious young twats talk a good talk but have only skimmed the surface of the dark half of the subculture, which they never fully devote themselves to in the first place. It's like first-person voyeurism, rather than immersion.

How does one contend to shatter the notion of "woman as sexual object" by becoming it and then rejecting it outright? So do you either embody sex or purity? What about sexuality as one part of a person's identity?

Are we taking a step forward or backward when we define female sexuality and liberation in terms of exploitation? Would a male stripper have to seek validation with a white picket fence history beneath his greased-up pectoral exterior? Probably not. If not, why do these women have to excuse themselves for doing what they do? If it's shame they feel, then their claims of liberating women sexually are dashed. If they feel superiority, then they have to look at their acts and see that they're exploiting their bodies as much as those objectifying them. If it's an insider's look into the abyss, well, then I'm not quite sure we're there yet.