Gilligan and Me

I listened to a show on the radio last night about post-modern literature. I have to admit that I have no idea what post-modern literature is because I’m not that well educated nor do I know much about literature and its divisions. As it is, all I can tell you about literature is that Shakespeare wrote plays. Otherwise, I have no idea what’s been going on or which category a particular author falls into.

I looked up Post-modern literature on Wikipedia and they tell me that Douglas Copeland is a Post-modernist writer. It took me three years to read Douglas Copeland’s ‘Generation X’, and it was supposed to be about me. I don’t remember much of it, though.
I also read that Dave Eggers published ‘A heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius’ in 2000 but I still haven’t gotten around to reading it yet. Actually, until a short while ago I’d never heard of him.
It’s fair to say that I don’t pay much attention to what’s going on around me.

The radio program was a piece written by a post-modernist author whose name I can’t remember. My brain sieve has a gaping whole in it, I guess.
It seems that in the never ending journey of self-discovery, we, as a people, have mastered self-referential satire and assigned it a domain. I got worried for a minute, wondering if I had ever written any self-referential satire. I wondered, then, if it might be a bad thing. I wondered that if I ever accidentally write self-referential satire, must I call myself a post-modernist? I hope not. If so, I’d have to do some research on what it means and care, or something.

I copied this from Wikipedia, after searching for Post-modernism.

In a nutshell, the pro-postmodernism argument runs that economic and technological conditions of our age have given rise to a decentralized, media-dominated society in which ideas are simulacra and only inter-referential representations and copies of each other, with no real original, stable or objective source for communication and meaning. Globalization, brought on by innovations in communication, manufacturing and transportation, is often cited as one force which has driven the decentralized modern life, creating a culturally pluralistic and interconnected global society lacking any single dominant center of political power, communication, or intellectual production.

The thing I find interesting about this is that it’s only two sentences.

I got this one from the Wiki posting on Post-Modern literature.

Neo-Existential writers have also focused more on the post-modern end of Neo-Existentialism, creating stream of consciousness narratives that depict the confusion of post-modern, neo existential angst, as well as the bitter resignation to a blind, uncaring corporate world which alienates individuals from their own individual meaning so that rather than becoming to be "something" (the actualization of their potential), they become rather "nothing" (by the disvaluing and disregard of their potential they are never able to actualize themselves in society as productive members of a process directed towards an end), they become a mere tool to be used and dispensed with as needed.

That’s one sentence. I bet the same guy wrote both of these entries. He writes a long sentence, that guy.

Now, where was I going with this?

Oh, yeah. I like sitting through the trailers when I rent a movie so that when someone brings one up in a conversation I can pretend that I’ve seen it just by mentioning a scene or two. It’s not quite lying, and it’s better than having to watch all those movies. Am I a post-modernist or am I just lazy? And, in the end, does anyone, apart from the people who produce long winded and confusing radio documentaries, care one way or the other?

I feel like Gilligan when he discovered that the Skipper, the Professor and Ginger were kidnapped by aliens and replaced with body-doubles intent on wreaking havoc on the island. Luckily, Gilligan was just too stupid and the aliens gave up in frustration.

A Vince Guaraldi Christmas

For so many of us Christmas isn't complete unless we can revisit some of the music we grew up listening to at this time of year. For me the only album that gets a complete and attentive listen is Vince Guaraldi's A Charlie Brown Christmas.

There's a story about how the pairing of an up and coming jazz pianist and the creator of one of America's favourite cartoons came about. Apparently after hearing a live Guaraldi track on the radio, Peanuts creator Charles Schultz told his driver to turn around and take him to a nearby club so that he could meet the musician. What came from that meeting was a soundtrack, recorded in 1964, for Schultz's first Peanuts special, A Boy Named Charlie Brown. When Schultz began to put together a Christmas special, Guaraldi was the obvious choice. Since then the Peanuts gang and Guaraldi have been inseparable.

Of the album's twelve tracks, there are six interpretive renditions of familiar Christmas classics done like no other could have. O Tannenbaum is the opening track and takes off from the simple piano beginning, adding in Fred Marshall on bass and Jerry Granelli on drums, to become a swinging glide through a winter wonderland of be-bop and blues.
What Child Is This, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Beethoven's Fur Elise, The Christmas Song (a peaceful piano solo) and the late addition of Greensleeves round out the traditional songs. These recordings, in my mind, rescue what could be derivative manipulations simply because Guaraldi handles them with care, revealing the beauty of each song as might have been intended.

But it's the original compositions that raise the hair on the back of my arms. My Little Drum, with it's syncopated drumming, adding a smattering of Guaraldi's Latin influences, along with the drone of Guaraldi's left hand evokes a tension that melts away with the children's chorus of "oohs". And it never fails to make me think of the Peanuts kids with their heads raised to the sky.
Linus and Lucy makes another appearance here, the original done for the 'Boy Named Charlie Brown' album and is the first song anyone thinks of when you say 'Peanuts'.
After that the instrumental Christmas Time is Here takes us on a meditative stroll, later accompanied by children's voices, through a landscape of twinkling piano and shuffling rhythms.
The two tracks that stand out for me, though, are Skating and Christmas is Coming. Skating is an upbeat trip-along that evokes memories of unblemished ice surfaces and falling snow. It's full of joy and wonder and you can hear in Guaraldi's playing his sense of humour and his love of simple melodies and rhythm.
If Christmas is Coming doesn't make your feet move, you're dead. It's upbeat and bouncy, while the middle blues progression will make you bust out the air-bass guitar. These two tracks alone are worth the price of admission.

Christmas is a time when it's not hard to find maudlin renditions of carols belted out by this year's newest singing sensation but for my money there's no need to buy another Christmas album if you already own this one. Get it out and listen to it.
You might not be able to separate the music from the visions of the Peanut's kids it evokes but that doesn't hinder the fun, the joy or the wonder at hearing Vince Guaraldi's A Charlie Brown Christmas. For me it brings home what Christmas is all about.

People Get Ready

With the finality of a slap to the face, winter has arrived in the capital. And I find myself a little unprepared, as usual. This occurred to me this morning as I tried to scrape the windows of the car with a stick and was late for an appointment. Yeah, winter has arrived.
Having waited for the indisputable truth in the form of icy roads and freezing temperatures, just in case winter might have been waylaid in Manitoba, I held off gathering up the supplies that any straight shooting Ontarian needs to survive until the spring.
Judging from the fifty-fifty appearance of the average person on the street, half wearing fur and hip boots, the others, running shoes and wind breakers, I know I’m not alone. A lot of us just need to see winter to believe it’s actually here. Call it denial or stupidity, it really amounts to the same thing doesn’t it?
It’s time for the box of emergency supplies to go back in the car. Luckily, I forgot to take it out last spring, so the extra blanket, pocket warmers and salt/sand mixture are still taking up most of my trunk space. It’s the other things, like a good pair of boots, a pair of gloves and a scarf that I need now.
It’s also time to remember how to drive on snowy roads, how to walk on icy sidewalks and how to smile when your face is frozen in place. And above all it’s important to remember that we’re all in the same boat. Ice boat. Whatever.
The disposition of the average person goes straight into the toilet in winter so I think it’s important to do a little extra work in front of the mirror before you head off to work. This will do you some good, I promise.
As you stand, blearily looking at your mottled and pale complexion, your toothbrush half in and half out of your mouth, imagine that it’s forty below outside. Imagine that the car is buried under four feet of snow and that your breath will likely freeze into little clouds of ice as you meander your way around snow banks as high as your head. Prepare yourself mentally for it. You’ll almost always be pleasantly surprised when you do go outside, if you don’t just give up and go back to bed.

This is the list of things I need to make winter a little more bearable:

1. Long underwear. There’s nothing sexy about these things but the same thing could be said for frostbite.

2. New hat, new mitts, new scarf. And they don’t have to match contrary to what my mother might tell you.

3. A bottle or two of Jack Daniels. Actually lowers your body temperature but I’ll be drunk and won’t notice that my toes are gone.

4. Firewood. I don’t have a fireplace but it might be necessary to improvise at some point. Remember the ice storm?

5. A steady succession of nubile young women to keep me warm. Actually, this does a body good at any time of year.

6. A list of emergency numbers. Dial-a-bottle, Season’s Pizza, etc.

7. One of those big rescue dogs. Always a good idea to have fresh meat on hand.

8. A flare gun. I probably won’t need one but I still think they’re cool. Might be useful to start the fire.

I’m sure I’ll come up with a few more things to add as the winds pick up and sky is blotted out by blizzards but that should be a good start.
Like I said, if you prepare for the worst then winter’s not so bad. Of course it hasn’t actually gone much below freezing yet but you can bet it’s coming. Maybe I should get two dogs.