I subscribe to the Globe and Mail but I don't read it cover to cover. After I read the comics, browse the "Review" section, and read the backpage of "Facts and Arguments", I don't have much time to actually read the paper before work. So I take short-cuts. I read the "Letters to the Editor" and I have taken to reading certain columnists regularly. Heather Mallick has a Saturday column in the Globe and I guess I would describe her column as an emotional response to the week's events. Sometimes this makes for an off-base column, but sometimes she's spot-on.
I think she's spot on this week:
The heart of darkness beats clear and steady in Guantanamo
By HEATHER MALLICK
Saturday, January 26, 2002 – Page F6
posted at 10:00 AM
Ok, so I seem to use this blog for two things:
1) write mindless items too trite for the main show
2) preserve quotes culled from the web and (more importantly) from the newspapers I read.
Some quotes that I liked from Peter Gzowski tributes I been reading today. Gzowski, if you don't know, is considered the consumate Canadian radio host (or as one sad writer put it, "The Barbara Frum of radio".. yick!)
Remembering a Canadian original: He thought out loud for all of us
By IAN BROWN
Friday, January 25, 2002 – Page A1
He could sustain opposing ideas without having a nervous breakdown, which of course is the definition of a first-class mind. I can't remember ever hearing him take sides. He knew that trying to make up your mind was always a better story, and a more interesting trip, than simply presenting an intellectual arrival as a fait accompli....
The only other piece of advice he ever gave me summed up his entire approach to radio, and then some: "Think fast," he said, "but speak slowly." This he did like no one else on the radio, before or after, and I mean anywhere in the world.
Magnetic voice spoke right to usBy SANDRA MARTIN
From Friday's Globe and Mail
The notoriously reticent Alice Munro always found time to talk to Mr. Gzowksi whenever she had a new book of short stories out. Thursday she described being interviewed by Mr. Gzowski as "a lot like learning to swim. He held you up for as long as you needed it, so easily and gracefully and unobtrusively that it almost seemed as if he was learning to swim, too.
"Then at some moment, he let you go, let you take your own direction, trusted you to do it right."
posted at 10:33 PM
I've never been a U2 fan. And ever since I read that they wrote their songs by cobbling together snippets of lyrics that they would make up individually (or was it ever since I was forced to see Rattle and Hum in the theatres?) I have had a serious ... how should I say it... a serious mistrust of the band.
I think David Plotz of Slate has articulated some of the reasons why U2 is not be trusted.
His diagnosis of U2's chronic vagueness reminded me of one of my favourite descriptions of the songs of Kurt Kobain written by Pursuit of Happiness lead singer, Moe Berg:
But to say that a lyricist is by definition a poet would ignore the reality of what popular music has become. Pop lyrics are Hallmark greetings at one end, and at the other random images onto which the audience can project their own meaning -- a style Kurt Cobain was so successful at
posted at 9:50 PM
There's a pizza joint here in Windsor called SLICES and dammit I think they are something fine.
It's not just because they pass my pizza litmus test (real mushrooms instead of smelly canned ones) but their attention to detail is fab. First off, a large pizza with unlimited toppings costs $18. Not only do you not have to any pesky addition to figure out if you have enough change on hand so you can spring for artichoke hearts, but that the delivery guy is essentially guranteed a $2 tip every time.
And if you order a tasty (artichoke hearts, garlic, mushrooms, pepperoni) but boring looking pizza, they fob a bit of parsley on it to make it look perrrty. And when some pizza conglomerates put a little plastic "Barbie table" to keep the pizza box from sagging into the cheese, SLICES drops a roasted head of garlic in the centre for form and function!
Oh yeah, they're locally owned and they support local artists and events and they hire goths for pizza delivery guys.
This is all I wanted to say.
Oh yeah. If I start a band, I would name it "The Browbeaters".
Some months ago, I heard Better than Ezra being interviewed on Detroit radio and somehow the word 'browbeat' came up in conversation. There was a pause and then one of the band members piped up "It costs money to be browbeat in Windsor!"
posted at 9:33 PM
