R.I.P.^1D.F.W.

 

Picture it: Red Deer, 1992. A young boy, undersized for his age and uncertain of his abilities, steps to the service line on a volleyball court. He has been brought in to close out the first set of an exhibition match. If his serve goes in and he plays solid defence, he will secure a spot as the primary back-row specialist on an elite team competing for Alberta at the Western Canadian finals the following week.
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As mentioned in a previous post, I recently took a course at U of T on modern drama.^{*I’ll never reveal my mark, but it was probably a bad sign for one of us that my prof complained on my first paper about there being no letters lower than ‘F’.} Among the gems I left with was this quote from Yeats, on J. M. Synge after Synge’s death at thirty-eight: “In all art like [Synge's], although it does not command—indeed because it does not—may lie the roots of far-branching events. Only that which does not reach, which does not cry out, which does not persuade, which does not condescend, which does not explain, is irresistible.”

I thought this was an excellent evocation not only of what makes a certain kind of drama powerful, but a certain kind of non-fiction as well. (more…)

With the departure of Maxime Bernier, Cabinet Draft 2008 appears to be getting underway. Prognosticators are busy speculating on who will fill which seats, and even whether any seats other than Bernier’s are up for grabs. (Google News result 2 for the query ‘harper cabinet shuffle’: “Bernier affair unlikely to prompt major cabinet shuffle, source says”^{*Translation: Harper’s office wishes to quell speculation, but isn’t willing to commit strongly enough to a small shuffle to say on the record that that’s what it will do. In the absence of a Daily Show up here, someone really needs to start a blog to sift through all the “unsourced” crap that is clearly coming from the PMO.}; result 3: “Major cabinet shuffle expected in coming weeks.”)

Alongside this speculation has come a rash of banal tsk-tsking to the effect that Maxime Bernier’s departure illustrates why Cabinet posts should emphasize talent over regional concerns. This wisdom has emanated from The National’s At Issue panel,^{*Whose video podcast I am addicted to. Why must you tease me so with your sensibly furrowed brow, Andrew Coyne?*Also worth two minutes of every day: The Hour’s Cold Openings.} the Globe and Mail’s editorial pages, and practically everyone capable of formulating a reasonably intelligent opinion on politics.^{*Everyone who fits this description, step forward. Not so fast, robotic vacuum cleaner!} (Sadly, nothing yet from Maclean’s generally excellent Blog Central.^{*Which, near as I can tell, operates as a sort of potlatch economy, granting bloggers status only if they lead with a gift of praise for a fellow Maclean’s writer.*Not so over here. FYI, Christopher Flavelle (walrusmagazine.com’s Bright Lights blogger) still thinks practical jokes involving laser pointers are funny, and Jared Bland (The Shelf) cheats at beach volleyball. You should only read their blogs if the rest of the Internet is down.})

Clearly, none of these people watch enough sports. Or if they do, they aren’t giving them enough thought. I’m talking levels of thought that, properly applied, could resolve questions that have plagued human existence for centuries.^{*Such as: Why are we here? And: Why are we really here? And: Who do I have to kill to find out why we’re really here? And: What do you mean by yourself?} Fortunately, my friends and I are up to the task. We’ve argued out the talent vs. regional representation thing many times before, in the form of the age-old debate between the Best Player Available (BPA) and Fill A Need (FAN) theories of drafting for major league sports teams. This argument predates politics, going right back to the dawn of human life, when God had to decide between creating Adam or a left-handed pitcher with great upside from Bayonne, New Jersey.^{*His choice is only the first of many reasons why Darwin eventually turfed Him.}

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The time I’ve been able to devote to my real work—blogging—has been limited lately thanks to my editing duties, researching a potential politics story for the fall, and studying for a course I’m taking on modern drama.^{*Which will, next time some Hollywood-approved star shows up in Ottawa to decry Bill C-10, prompt some seriously trenchant comparisons with Lord Chamberlain’s censorship of George Bernard Shaw’s Miss Warren’s Profession. I recommend checking in early and often.} As such, in the grand tradition of starving freelance writers everywhere, I’m recycling some content created for another forum in hopes no one will care.

In this case, following is the text of a eulogy I delivered for Bigfoot last Thursday at Toronto’s Gladstone Hotel, a launch for Walrus contributing artist Graham Roumieu’s Bigfoot: I Not Dead (which you can purchase here) that was part of the This Is Not a Reading Series put on by Pages Books. You can also read managing editor Jared Bland’s interview with Bigfoot for more.

I should note that I was forced to deliver this right after comedian and writer Seán Cullen had seemingly drawn out every laugh a hundred or so human bodies are capable of expelling in a single evening^{*Calculated by eminent guffologists to be exactly 1,753.} with his largely improvised take on how we should all learn from Bigfoot’s ability to live in the now. But no pressure.

Warning: could be viewed as vulgar by human standards, though it will seem profoundly commonplace to most sasquatches.^{*And to Michael Winter, whose scatalogical eulogy stretched the boundaries of good, bad, and awful taste—and we are all the better for having heard it.}

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In vague honour of the recent release of The McSweeney’s Joke Book of Book JokesIn vague honour of the recent release of The McSweeney’s Joke Book of Book Jokes (featuring a riff on Borgès by occasional Walrus contributor David Ng),^{*I shouldn’t be honouring them, given that they turned down my hilarious submission, “Gary Shteyngart Is a Shtupidface,” but that’s just the kind of generous spirit I am.} an unwittingly funny quote I had the misfortune to come across yesterday. It’s the response of Sweden’s foremost contribution to world literature, August Strindberg,^{*Sorry about your luck, Göran Sonnevi.} to Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil :
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My friend the Baronist recently loaned me the Simon Schama’s Power of Art DVDs. The BBC series, which first aired in 2006, crafts episodes around eight seminal works, combining biography, social history, and criticism to give a sense of what made each one significant during its time and what keeps it so today. I’ve thus far seen the ones dedicated to Caravaggio’s David with the Head of Goliath (1601), Bernini’s Ecstasy of St. Theresa (1652), Rembrandt’s The Conspiracy of the Batavians Under Claudius Civilis (ca. 1666), David’s The Death of Marat (1793), and Turner’s Slave Ship (Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On) (1840).^{*Update for all you completists: I’ve since seen the rest. Van Gogh’s Wheatfield with Crows (1890), Picasso’s Guernica (1937), and Rothko’s Black on Maroon (1958), for scorekeeper-completists.} All have been riveting, with the exception of the one on David, who, as a painter, makes for a great revolutionary.^{*The violent kind, not the artistic genius kind, in case that wasn’t clear.}

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A few last thoughts on the subject of mixed martial arts^{*Before I get back to my true passion: Bennett Buggy repair.} in the wake of UFC 83, which went off last Saturday in Montreal, and of an interview Robin Brown conducted with me for The Inside Track, which will air on CBC Radio One at 1:30 on Sunday, May 3, in most parts of the country (4:30 Pacific and 2 in Newfoundland, also on Sirius channel 137 at 6:30 Eastern).
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So I’m going to piggyback on the recent blogosphere success of The Walrus’s resident Man, Ed Keenan, by responding to his latest post, “The Manly Art, Minus the Artifice,” as well as to Frank Deford’s recent article on Sports Illustrated’s website, “Has boxing been quashed for blood sport?”^{*Subtitle: “Why we’re getting our butts kicked by ESPN.com.”} Both offer critiques of mixed martial arts, which, as mentioned a few times on the site the past few days, Jan Dutkiewicz and I have an article on in the current issue of The Walrus.

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I went to see the New Pornographers and Okkervil River play at the Phoenix in Toronto on Wednesday night. The concert was surprisingly good. I say surprisingly first of all because the New Pornographers were excellent, though they don’t have much of a reputation as a live act. Carl Newman can churn out cheery distortion pop like nobody’s business, and he comes across as one of the nicest musicians you’d ever want to meet. But as my good friend the Baronist pointed out, when the music’s on, he comes across as one of the nicest musicians you’d ever want to meet. Dude rocks out with his **** in. Still, since Neko Case^{*Who I remain willing to marry despite her steadfast refusal to send me a mason jar with one of her high notes trapped inside.} was singing and twitching the best tambourine this side of Betty,^* I was impressed.

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The May issue of The Walrus features a story I wrote with Jan Dutkiewicz on mixed martial arts. I promised when we went to press that I would write a blog post on the subject of Barthes and MMA, which will hopefully not prove as obnoxious as it sounds. I’m also not sure I can top Chuck Liddell (pounding Randy Couture in photo) on the subject, but I’ll give it a shot.

Like^{*As part of my and Ed Keenan’s ongoing efforts to reclaim the footnote from D1a2v3i4d5 F6o7s8t9e*r& W!a†lπl∑a√c≈e©, we’re taking things up a notch. Henceforth, sidenotes.} most people with a Bachelor of Arts degree, I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to forget about Barthes. I’d largely succeeded at this task, until a former intern here, much better read than me,^{*Except for the works of Richard Scarry, which I am the world’s foremost expert on. It was I, you probably know, who first explicated the subtext of his masterwork, What Do People Do All Day? Turns out they mostly sit around thinking about sex. For shame, Mr. Scarry, for shame.} handed me a copy of Barthes’ Mythologies in conjunction with my research for the story. She’d flagged the essay “The World of Wrestling” for me, which I soon realized I’d read and subsequently repressed as an undergrad. (more…)

As part of my ongoing efforts to make this blog as random as possible, I recently subscribed to zip.ca, a site that allows you to rent DVDs by mail. Notwithstanding Zip’s impossible-to-browse catalogue and persistent inability to send me any movie ranked above #9 on my “Ziplist,” it’s a fun way to pretend I enjoy artsy movies. Much easier to click a Rossellini film onto your watchlist, given that with Zip you never know when you’ll actually see the film, than it is to commit to it at the video store on a Friday night when you’re bagged and just want to go home and fantasize that you’re Sigourney Weaver taking care of some pestilential co-work… er, aliens.^{1The following co-workers are exempt from this Freudian slip:} (more…)