Latin America's left turn
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060501faessay85302/jorge-g-castaneda/
latin-america-s-left-turn.html I don't have a great deal of knowledge of Latin America, having focused on Asia during my university years. But my visit to Ecuador and travels of various friends to South America over the last few months has piqued my interest, and I have started following some of these trends.

posted by Tina on 4/25/2006 | 0 comments | #

looking for an icon
http://www.cbc.ca/correspondent/060423.html On Sunday night, while suffering a bout of insomnia, I stayed up late watching this, a documentary about iconic press images. One of the ideas I found most interesting was that many of our "iconic" images closely match major art traditions of the western world (e.g. Christian imagery in the famous Abu Ghraib photos or the migrant mother as Mary Magdelene). One of the people interviewed for the documentary remarked that photojournalists are informed by the western tradition of art, and therefore their eyes are drawn to capture scenes that match this tradition: "Because when these photographers are in the process of composing them, what they're calling on in their mind's eye is a history of imagery with which they're all familiar and various compositional rules that often are derived from the history of art." And we, as consumers of these media images, recognize their power because we too are informed by this same tradition.

posted by Tina on 4/25/2006 | 0 comments | #

superlatives
Every year I come away from Whistler with at least one "best day ever" (pronounced in a suitably enthusiastic, high-pitched tone, eyes wide open, grin tips almost touching ears). Saturday was it. A number of factors collided to produce it, including an amazing weekend deal on the five star Pan Pacific hotel, 61 cms of fresh snow in the preceding week, and crystal clear blue skies and sunshine. We started the day off by stashing beers under some trees in the snow and then spent the day cruising through blinding sunlight, with a highlight being the wide-open expanse of the Blackcomb Glacier bowl. Then five of us shared beers and a bottle of wine in the late afternoon on a quiet ridge overlooking the valley, with a final ski out on empty runs after the lifts had closed. I believe the word that most closely captures that end-of-day feeling is "euphoria".

Then the hot tub, the big air competition, and a free Blackalicious concert. Oh, don't you all wish you lived here?

posted by Tina on 4/24/2006 | 0 comments | #

american apparel
american apparel pushing it. Ah, yes, good old American Apparel, where I was charged $34 Canadian for a tube top last weekend. Not that I can complain, since I did dish out the dollars, and took the free legwarmers that came with it. Related links found while researching this topic further here and here (the latter an old article I may have linked to last year). Also, gap, without blue jeans.

posted by Tina on 4/24/2006 | 0 comments | #

womenomics
http://www.economist.com/finance/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=6802551 If women are to get out and power the global economy, it is surely only fair that men should at last do more of the housework." HAH, fat chance that will happen.

posted by Tina on 4/21/2006 | 0 comments | #

mini reviews
Been reading a bit as I try to puzzle my way through a macroeconomics class. Quick mini updates:

A Complicated Kindness, by Miriam Toews: Very good, funny. I think reviewers like to compare books to others that came before so readers can identify if they might like to read something ("Oh, it's like that book. I'll like this one too.") But I felt that comparing this to Salinger's Catcher in the Rye is a disservice (not to detract from the latter). I liked this narrator much better, and felt like her challenges were bigger.

The Sea, by John Banville, which was nice, and sad, but it didn't move me or stick in my head. Joan Didion's Year of Magical Thinking reminded me of this for some reason, but I would otherwise have forgotten it by this time next year. I couldn't get completely through the latter. Is it because I've never experienced grief the way the narrators (one real, one fictional) do?

Currently, I'm in The Time In Between, by David Bergen. So far so good. Incidentally, the American version of this book has an unfortunate cover. I prefer the Canadian one. These make it look like two completely different books.

posted by Tina on 4/10/2006 | 3 comments | #

now, here is a book to read
"'The next person to be killed is Shirin Ebadi.' Me." Now, here is a book to read.

Also, unrelated, but compelling: pro-life nation

posted by Tina on 4/10/2006 | 0 comments | #

fembots, revisited
http://www.bulletinboardforum.com/playboy.htm In case you missed the comment on this post, here are those Playboy centerfolds I wrote about. The link was kindly sent to me by Christian. Warning: this is probably not safe for work.

posted by Tina on 4/07/2006 | 1 comments | #

naked in a meadow
In British Columbia, students have to write provincial exams in key subjects to graduate from high school. The English 12 final when I wrote it consisted of multiple choice grammar questions, some basic reading comprehension, and the much-dreaded 500 word "composition". From Grade 9 onwards, we had it drummed into our heads that a good essay followed the structure of the basic five-paragraph thesis/support:
Para. 1: Thesis, and intro to your three main supporting arguments
Para. 2: Support 1, state it and provide evidence for how it supports your thesis
Para. 3: Support 2, as above
Para. 4: Support 3, as above
Para. 5: Conclusion - summarize your three supports and restate thesis.

This structure was supposedly developed for high-school because back in the 70s, students were getting too creative, and then bombing out in university because their papers lacked structure and/or logical reasoning. So the five-paragraph "thesis-support" essay was born and taught ad nauseam across the province. This led to some incredibly boring essays (of which I wrote a great many), and made essay-writing easy when the subject was along the lines of "Why the Amazon rainforest should be saved", but painful when writing an essay comparing Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness with Coppola's film, Apocalypse Now.

By the time I wrote my grade 12 exam in 1994, the pendulum was starting to swing the other way, with markers tired of rigid structure and the boring essays it engendered. On the day of the final, I opened the exam booklet to see the topic, "Beauty can be found in simple things,"** with instructions to write a 500-word composition. Although the topic was both bland and stupid, it was pretty easy and rife with possibility.

I had heard rumours that markers were getting more lenient with structure requirements, and since it distinctly read "composition" rather than "essay", I went out on a limb (out of character for me) and consciously chose not to write a thesis-support essay. Instead, I wrote a first-person treacly free-flowing cliche-ridden stream of consciousness about running naked in a dew-drenched meadow on a sunny spring morning. I am not kidding.

Somehow, I wound up with a mark of 98%. The pendulum had apparently swung way in my direction. Either that or some poor English teacher earning extra money by marking provincial finals read my composition after hundreds of painful thesis-support essays and promptly burst into laughter. S/he gave me a good mark in thanks.

I would pay money to get a copy of that composition. I would read it, laugh, and then burn it.

** Consider the inanity of more recent topics available on the practice exams at the BC government website: "Certain experiences can mark the beginnings of maturity", "Our journey into the future begins in the past," and a personal favourite, "Role models influence our lives".

posted by Tina on 4/04/2006 | 0 comments | #