How is the following headline not an Onion story?

Bad culinary compromise

There's a dim sum place in Edmonton that, in a bid to appeal to its mixed clientele, uses a table setting that consists of chopsticks, a fork, and a large plate. That is the default table setting and I have to ask for bowls each time I go. The table setting perplexes and irritates me. I want to use chopsticks for dim sum, but chopsticks are not the best utensils to use with a plate. A bowl makes more sense because you can hold it closer to you when eating and also because you can bring it forward to the little basket you want to take food from. I suppose I could use a fork since that's the plate's logical utensil pairing, but then I would spontaneously combust out of shame.

So basically: why give us chopsticks at all if we don't also get bowls? And what's wrong with the traditional table setting of a bowl that sits on a little plate? And why not make forks the optional utensil?

I get that the establishment doesn't want to alienate its non-chopstick-using customers; I just wish they wouldn't condescend to everyone else at the same time.

Two ends of the same spectrum: Michael Jackson and J&K+8

For over a week now I've been trying to figure out why I've been obsessed with the unseemly details of the demise of Jon and Kate Gosselin's marriage. For five seasons (over 2-3 years), they've let TV cameras into their home to document life with a set of twins and a set of sextuplets, and then kept the cameras rolling as they grew apart and eventually filed for divorce. There has been no end of pop culture analysis of what this could mean (just Google for examples, okay?), how terrible this is for the children, how selfish and immature Jon is being, how awful and controlling Kate is, and how the show has declined since the Gosselins are no longer a typical middle-class family with an unusally large brood (see: increasingly brazen product placement and cross-promotion, new $1 million house and acreage bought with proceeds of show, increased emphasis on the parents at the expense of the adorable children).

And then Michael Jackson died.

And the world exploded in mourning. (and went to Youtube. But that's a post for another day.)

But what, exactly, have we been mourning? As the Onion has astutely pointed out, what people want to remember is the cute, talented kid with a great voice and dance moves, not the increasingly odd, increasingly white eccentric who would be aquitted of child sex abuses charges a mere four years ago. I think it would be interesting to ask people at what point in time, what day/month/year, they would like to stop the Michael Jackson timeline and not know about anything that happened afterwards.

At first I thought the connection between Jon&Kate and the reaction to Michael Jackson's death was about time, specifically that clichéd yet universal and base need to stop time at the best moment. In our own lives, we don't know what that best moment is, so to try to pick a point in the middle of living would be like hedging a bet. But with Jon&Kate's marriage (and the show) and Michael Jackson's public image (because let's face it, that is all we're ever going to know), we have the benefit of retrospect, of seeing the finite end, and can locate what we think are highlights.

But I think it's more than just the need to freeze time at the optimal moment. I think both events and the public fascination therewith touch on a need to be optimist about time, to think that the world can be better tomorrow. And that both events demonstrate how that need is constantly unfulfilled. We want to remember things at their best, suspended in time, not because we are optimists, but because we are pessimists, because we fear that life might not get any better. The desire to stop at the highlights is rooted in the deep, gnawing fear that time forward is not necessarily time better.

Jon&Kate Plus Divorce and the death of Michael Jackson represents the two extremes of how that desired optimism is dashed. On the one hand, we have a marriage of two rather banal people falling apart on television, though with unusual stressors (big family of multiples, reality-show-level celebrity). On the other hand, we have the protracted demise of Michael Jackson, whose physical death was preceded that of his music career and the protracted erosion of his public image. If regular people like Jon and Kate can't make it work, and if someone as talented and rich as Michael Jackson can die hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, then where's the hope for the rest of us?

And finally, it seems only appropriate to bring it back to the children, the "hope" for our "future". Specifically, to one child, a 12-year-old on the Ed Sullivan show singing "I Want You Back" with his four brothers. What if it had stopped there? What if his voiced had changed, if an injury prevented him from dancing as well, if he had left show business? What if he really had died at 12? Would people have mourned the lost potential, wondering about the records he could have made when he'd matured as an artist, the future he could have had?

What if they knew everything that was to come? Would they still be mourning then?

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Snap Judgement/Review

The following paragraph was originally going to be my conclusion, but it's too important to leave until the end of an incredibly long post, so I'll just say it here:

What bothers me the most about Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is that I know that people who have never read Pride and Prejudice before bought this book, but instead of getting Austen plus some cool zombie action, they are going to get decent zombie action and sub-par Austen. New readers are going to think that Austen is a poor writer who cannot develop characters or move a plot along. Instead of bringing new readers to Austen, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies does a disservice to the text that its entire existence is based on.

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What follows is sort of a rant, not quite an essay. Possibly in the same way that zombies are sort of dead but not quite inanimate. It is, however, long.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is a lot like a zombie: lumbering, ill-mannered, and serving no purpose but to be nuisance to be dispatched. It's an interesting idea clumsily executed with little attention to important narrative elements such as pacing, style, and characterization. Considered as an "adaptation/alteration" of Austen, it's distractingly inconsistent; considered as a novel on its own merits, it's pedestrian.

The book follows the plot of Austen's novel closely, hitting almost all the major (and most of the minor) plot points. Seth Grahame-Greene's most evident contributions to the book are the zombie-related details (all five Bennet sisters are trained zombie fighters). The zombie scenes themselves range from clever to pedestrian; the quality of writing takes a noticeable dip as it perfunctorily describes action with little of Austen's irony or wit. Graham-Greene is most successful when he integrates the martial-arts world of zombie fighting with appropriate moments in the novel, such as Elizbeth's response to Darcy's first, insulting proposal (there's kicking). Graham-Greene also inserts references to zombies or the plague into characters' dialogue, with less success. Placing his own work immediately next to Austen's, in the same paragraph, further emphasizes the differences in style, tone, and skill, especially when he steps on her punchlines. For example, Graham-Greene alters Mr. Bennet's classic response to Mrs. Bennet's insistence that he make Elizabeth marry Mr. Collins. The new version reads as follows. Guess which part is added.

An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you must be a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do; for I shall not have my best warrior resigned to the service of a man who is fatter than Buddha and duller than the edge of a learning sword. (88)

Yes, Grahame-Smith's idea of humour consists of fat jokes, double entendres about balls, and vomitting. Classy.

Grahame-Smith is not only the co-author of this book, but also an editor. Sections of the original are cut completely (the portrait scene is missing from the Pemberley visit) or condensed. Some chapters begin on the left-hand page and end on the following right-hand facing page. While this was presumably done to make the narrative shorter, it paradoxically results in making it read slower. How can this be?

Two reasons. First, the pleasure of getting into any novel lies in getting caught up in the story and the characters. Cutting down Pride and Prejudice means cutting back on characterization and lessening the reader's investment in that most basic of questions: what happens next? Just because something is shorter does not mean that it will read shorter; flow is as important as length. Secondly, Austen's rhythm, which carries the reader along, is disrupted. Why? Because Graham-Smith inexplicably takes it upon himself to edit Austen's prose. He makes seemingly minor edits that ruin entire paragraphs. Take, for example, this paragraph, in which Jane finally realizes that Miss Bingley is not as nice as she seems. This is the altered version:

As she predicted, four weeks passed away, and Jane saw nothing of him [Mr. Bingley]. She endeavoured to persuade herself that she did not regret it; but she could no longer be blind to Miss Bingely's inattention. After waiting at home every morning for a fortnight, the visitor did at last appear; but the shortness of her stay and the alteration of her manner would allow Jane to deceive herself no longer. The letter which she wrote to her sister will prove what she felt. (113)

All the words are Austen's except the first three (which introduces a vague pronoun reference, but hey, nobody's perfect), yet the paragraph comes to a clunky stop with that final sentence. Here's the original, with the excised portions in bold:

Four weeks passed away, and Jane saw nothing of him. She endeavoured to persuade herself that she did not regret it; but she could no longer be blind to Miss Bingley's inattention. After waiting at home every morning for a fortnight, and inventing every evening a fresh excuse for her, the visitor did at last appear; but the shortness of her stay, and yet more, the alteration of her manner, would allow Jane to deceive herself no longer. The letter which she wrote on this occasion to her sister will prove what she felt.

The first eliminated phrase relates to Jane's characterization—of course she would find an excuse for Caroline Bingley's rudeness. The second excision is unforgiveable because the "yet more" indicates the importance of the detail. Taken as a whole, the paragraph builds, starting with a short sentence, culminating in the long third sentence and then transitioning smoothly to the letter in the final sentence. The altered paragraph reads oddly because the sentences are of a more uniform length—there is little variation to maintain interest and the repeated rhythm is annoying. The last omission, "on this occasion", seems excusable, yet it is more precise than the edited version (Jane writes more than one letter to Elizabeth) while the edited version is more abrupt.

Grahame-Greene's own writing could have used a better editor. In a sentence quoted by Entertainment Weekly as an example of his cleverness, Elizabeth, Mr. Darcy, and Mr. Bingley find that the Netherfield kitchen staff has been killed by zombies. To prevent further infection, Mr. Darcy must decapitate the dead servants: "He then made quick work of beheading the slaughtered staff, upon which Mr. Bingley politely vomited into his hands" (82). For "upon which" substitute "whereupon" and it won't sound like poor Bingley threw up on his servants and on his hands. Here's another example where "upon which" should not be used next to a noun: "Kitty put the creature down with a shot to the face, upon which Lydia placed her barrel against its head and promptly dispatched it to Hell" (91).

In addition to awkward writing, the zombie part of the novel needs a clearer narrative arc. It is uninteresting to have the Bennet sisters already be capable zombie killers—there are few opportunities for tension or development. It would have been much more fun to have mysterious creatures appear, slowly at first, and watch people figure out what was going on (see: Dracula). The novel already has an education component, as Elizabeth learns to distrust first impressions; adding how to kill zombies to the mix could have been fun. Moreover, the best zombie texts (Dawn of the Dead, Shaun of the Dead) have used zombies as a metaphor, pointing out how grind of modern society (dreary job, mass consumerism) reduce us to nothing more than hollow shells of our former selves. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies takes no advantage of the potential for social commentary, even as it appropriates a classic work of social satire.

Having already gone into great detail about the writing style, I'll spare you, my poor reader, the litany of abuses visited upon characters, whose inconsistent behaviour (would Lydia have ever paid sufficient attention in class to master the art of killing zombies? Would Mrs. Gardiner ever cheat on her husband? Would Mr. Collins be so dismayed over Charlotte's death that he would hang himself on her favourite tree?) could lead to diagnoses of schizophrenia.

Instead, I will end with what I believe is the most unforgiveable of Grahame-Smith's additions, pure cliché which any good writer would blush to acknowledge:

For the more she dwelled on the subject, the more powerful she felt; not for her mastery of the deadly arts, but for her power over the heart of another. What a power it was! But how to wield it? Of all the weapons she had commanded, Elizabeth knew the least of love; and of all the weapons in the world, love was the most dangerous. (213)

And here I was, thinking that love was a battlefield.

Reach out and ??? someone

Last Thursday I needed to get a hold of Jeff, so I phoned his cell. I got his voicemail (a rare occurence) and left a message telling him to call me back that night. He did not. Throughout that night I kept my MSN Messenger open hoping that he would appear online. He did not, so finally I sent him a quick e-mail with the substance of what I wanted to talk to him about. Jeff phoned me back the next day around noon with no idea why I had wanted to talk to him, having received my voicemail but not my e-mail.

If I want to get a hold of my sister, I know that the first thing to do is to call her cell phone. If she doesn't pick up, it means that she's at work, so I will text her instead if it's timely. If the issue is not timely, I will send her an e-mail. I never call her landline at home.

If I need to get a hold of Dan, I will phone him at home and then at his office. If he does not pick up, I try to find him on Skype, and if not, then I send him an e-mail.

If I need to contact Dana, I text her. This never fails.

My point, and indeed I have one, is that the age of social networking has actually made it more difficult to get a hold of someone than in the days when the only option was to phone a landline and leave a message. Everyone has their own unique Social Network Fingerprint, so to speak, prioritizing some platforms and programs over others. I normally use MSN Messenger, but I still use Yahoo Messenger because one of my friends is on Yahoo but not MSN. A few of my friends, including Jeff, use G-Mail chat, but I don't, which is why I didn't think to check for Jeff on G-chat on Thursday. A friend's brother uses Facebook chat as his primary chat program.

With all these choices available, it's miracle that we can even get a hold of people, especially when we really need to. Exhausting all options becomes exhausting as we try to remember which friends privilege which programs. I guess I'm just waiting for the day when we simulateously, collectively develop the power of selective telepathy and can just 'think' to the person we want to. Collective (but controlled) telepathy would solve all the problems detailed above. After all, chat programs, e-mail, telephones are all external ways of engaging with others. What we really need to do is to tap into something closer to consciousness—something that does not require the mediation of phones or computers—to bypass the clutter that is keeping us from reaching others. Is that too much to ask?

Epic hopscotch

This weekend, some neighbourhood kids (and perhaps not-so-young children) drew an epic hopscotch course on the sidewalk. I noticed it when I saw people hopping funny from my window.

Indeed, they could not help themselves:


The course starts normally:


But then expands on the traditional hop scotch arrangement:


It's so long that the creators helpfully schedule a break:


I suppose the break included beer:


In my favourite sequence, the old-fashioned concept of hopscotch meets some kind of platform video game about mid-way through, starting with the lava level (the hot pink squiggles)...


encountering the Matrix...


And then time travelling to the 80's...


Danger presented itself as a torn-up sidewalk in front of where a house was just moved (seriously. Someone moved an entire house three blocks and made a big mess at two sites).
I don't think the Bud box was always there.

How long was the course? It stretched beyond one long city block:


Into the high 400s!
The end:


Credits (blurry) ...

Proofreading is not rocket science

Dear corporations and head offices:

Proofread your websites.

Seriously.


No, SERIOUSLY.