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The Lost Art of the Apology, Vol 3

Columnists are paid to be controversial, so it should not have surprised me to read Globe and Mail columnist Russell Smith praising the announcer-free-all-CDs-all-the-time programming playing on CBC Radio Two during the current lockout of CBC and Radio Canada workers.

But as the spouse of someone who works hard as a producer at CBC when there isn't a management-imposed lockout (maybe I'm a bit biased), I was both annoyed and a bit offended. He came off as an arrogant turd making a snide point about radio programming at the expense of all the people who are walking a picket line. They are off the air because they were locked out about a minute and a half after management was legally allowed to close the doors to employees.

In today's Globe, Smith reiterated his contention (paid sub. required after 7-10 days) about the programming direction Radio Two should take, but also apologized for appearing insensitive to locked-out workers:

"So, to those people I offended who make intelligent radio and television, and who are now in the unenviable position of being without an income, I apologize."

Damn straight. I don't think journalists have to spout the union line in this dispute, but the CBC staff rightly feel defensive when columnists take potshots at:

• the institution the employees have devoted their careers to, and
• the employees' role in the dispute.

Smith doesn't have to apologize about his programming preferences, but I appreciated his apology for appearing to be insensitive to all the CBC types who are involuntarily off the job.

Lost Art of the Apology, Vol 1
Lost Art of the Apology, Vol 2

Bruce Sterling's Hurricane: Been There, Done That

With the beginning of hurricane season this year, I thought about Bruce Sterling's speculative fiction novel Heavy Weather, and its vision of the decay of infrastructure and ethics in the face of the relentless hammering of chaotic weather patterns.

The recent Hurricane Katrina aftermath images from the Gulf Coast and particularly New Orleans looked as if they were straight from his book. The reports of roving thugs looting and visiting their violence on others were eerily familiar.

Sterling comments on his blog: "My darkest sci-fi disaster scenario looks a little milder and more realistic every day."

Safety Gear for Small Animals

  Safety Gear for Small Animals 
  Originally uploaded by Mutually Inclusive.

The Dunlop Art Gallery presented Bill Burns' Safety Gear for Small Animals recently and hosted a launch for his book of the same name.

Burns grew up in Saskatchewan. His safety gear show is his best known piece of work, spanning several years and getting a little bit quirkier each time.

The best thing about Burns' safety gear show is that it's a totally deadpan presentation of how to make it up to the animals for all the environmental and habitat degradation humans are responsible for. We can't give them back a place to wander in the wild, so let's give them work gloves and safety helmets.

In this photo, he's at the mike for the launch of his book, along with a miniature moose, and Regina dancer Robin Poitras with a small robin (her namesake). It was followed by a presentation of a sound work by Don Stein.

Unauthorized Photo of a Sound Event

While attending the Dunlop Art Gallery's sound performance Shhhhh! Stackwalking by Don Stein, we wandered the Regina Public Library listening to different soundscapes coming from speakers located in different locations around the stacks. It was fun, because my spouse was one of the voices used to create the sound art.

Even more amusing was the way people in the library just ignored the cacaphony around them, and kept on with their reading, searching, browsing behaviour.

Seconds after I took this picture a loud, unpleasant security guard started shouting at me, telling me I wasn't allowed to take pictures. Hmmm. Is this part of the performance art show, or is it just a pumped-up guard treating me like a criminal?

We checked in with Bill Burns, whose book based on his art show Safety Equipment for Small Animals was launching, and quickly departed.

Anyway, my apologies to the denizens of the library, whose images I have captured in an unauthorized fashion. I promise never to come back and take your pictures again. (Click on the photo to see a larger version.)


  Regina Public Libary 
  Originally uploaded by Mutually Inclusive.

Tom Cruise: When the Client Controls the Message

There has been considerable commentary lately about the new Tom Cruise, complete with detailed promotion of the Church of Scientology, extensive disclosure about his love life, and a bit too much exposure, even for an A-List actor.

Reuters describes the dramatic shift from entertainment PR diva Pat Kingley, who used to keep a tight rein on Cruise's image, to Cruise's sister Lee Anne  Mapother De Vette who now has a somewhat looser control over the star's pronouncements.

Frankly, I'm appalled to read about Kingsley's bullying tactics that froze out entertainment reporters and media outlets that covered Cruise in a way she didn't approve. Her methods may have worked, but I think it's totally unethical to withhold access to certain media because they haven't played the publicity game with you. I'm not saying publicists have to bend over backwards to help journalists and critics who have burned them, but blackballing journalists from access to a wide range of celebrities strikes me as an inappropropriate use of power in a business that has relatively little oversight by regulators.

Having replaced his dragon lady PR person with a fellow Scientology evangelist, Cruise is shooting himself in the foot, and learning (as if Michael Jackson hasn't already taught us this lesson) that celebrities can only push the public's sense of propriety so far.

The Guardian weighs in.

Online Literary Sound Archive

The University of Pennsylvania has created PennSound, an online sound archive of contemporary writing.

I'm so out of touch I only recognize a few of the many featured authors:

Ted Berrigan, Robin Blaser, Robert Creeley, Ed Dorn, Charles Olson and Jack Spicer.

Now that I've come across this, I'll have to go back and listen to some of the writers I've never heard about.

From the launch news release:

PennSound: All the Free Poetry You Care to Download

Jan. 5, 2005

PHILADELPHIA -The recording industry may not want anyone downloading music without paying for it, but a new project at the University of Pennsylvania encourages downloading right to MP3 players and hard drives all the poetry a listener might want.  And it's all free for the asking.

PennSound (writing.upenn.edu/pennsound), launched Jan. 1, is a Web-based archive for noncommercial distribution of the largest collection of poetry sound files on the Internet.  PennSound offers a large variety of digital recordings of poems -- currently 1,500 and fast growing -- mostly as song-length singles.

Taking Art to the Streets

  Hello, Mom? We're Busking! 
  Originally uploaded by Mutually Inclusive.

Every year the Cathedral area in Regina dusts off its dancing shoes and has an arts festival. Today the threat of rain wasn't enough to keep people away from 13th Avenue.

The buskers were out in force, and there were definitely deals to be had in the crafts booths.  Once a year, you say?  Pity!

Cathedral does its best to be bohemiam year-round, but it's only during the arts festival that its granola roots really show through.

Andrew K. on the fiddle.

A Published Poet Is a Lucky Man

  Victor Enns Book Launch - Lucky Man 
  Originally uploaded by Mutually Inclusive.

My friend Victor Enns was in Regina for a reading from his new book Lucky Man on May 18.

I've been waiting for this book to come out for the last 10 years, so was pleased to hear that Hagios Press was bringing it out.

Vic's incredible economy as a writer makes his observations on the life of a writer, father, husband, administrator, dreamer and survivor both immediate and compelling.

Victor writes and lives in Winnipeg now, but Saskatchewan still remembers him fondly for the rock solid job he did building the Saskatchewan Writers Guild into the best organization of its kind in the country.

Whatever Happened to Commemorative Statuary?

In Regina yesterday, the Queen unveiled a quite remarkable statue of herself as a younger woman riding her favourite horse, Burmese.

The large statue is actually pretty impressive.  It's like a reminder of the days when public statuary was a common expression of appreciation or respect for society's institutions and individuals.  You don't see a lot of new commemorative statues these days.

The garden in front of Regina's legislative building now has a focal point, where before it was just a foreground to a view of the Legislative building or Wascana Lake.  And it's now called The Queen Elizabeth II Garden, rather than just "the garden in front of the Leg."

Saskatchewan should have a centennial more often.

Photos of the Queen in her landau.

Entertainment Nazis Dish it Out but Can't Take Criticism

(Edited)

You can't bleeping say that!

I came across a fatuous gossip item about Tobey Maguire's weight (complete with candid photo, posted by a minion of PR, fashion and "healthy lifestyles issues" pitchman Pierce Mattie).

When I tried to leave a comment criticizing the point of view on Mattie's blog, I got the following message:

Your comment was disallowed for objectionable content.

Which word was objectionable? "Fat"? "Editor"? "Blogger"? Maybe it was that I called his comments "crap".

How could that be more objectionable than Mattie's blog's smarmy complaint that Maguire doesn't look healthy because he doesn't have that heroin addict, anorexic palour?

For the record, Pierce, if this is your idea of how to promote "healthy lifestyles", you've spent way too much time living in a fashion/entertainment industry bubble.

Here was my comment about the photo of Maguire, and accompanying fat critique. Mattie will have to come here to read it, since I'm not allowed to say naughty words in his playground:

"Um, he's wearing a sweatshirt and baggy pants. And he doesn't look like he has a wasting disease. Does that count as fat these days? Maybe the real bloating is the fat heads of the reporters, editors, producers and bloggers who write this sort of crap."

There's an equally lame posting (with photo) on the same topic at Defamer and a bunch of other sites.  I guess bloated minds think alike.

Update:  An expert in healthy lifestyles forwarded me a photo of Mattie (he hides his face behind a megaphone, perhaps to hide gopher cheeks?), and I ran it through my bloat-ometer.  If entertainment industry commentators keep producing the same methane-rich health advice, their heads will in fact become grossly bloated.  My bloat-ometer was able to simulate what Mattie will look like within three years if he doesn't alter his current habits.

It's not too late, Pierce! You can save yourself by promoting actual healthy lifestyles instead of the Hollywood version.

 

Update:  I got a response from a Pierce Mattie minion, telling me to check my facts about my post, and they're 100% correct. The piece mentioned here was in fact post by someone named Steve Hultgren, who says that any one of 15 people can post to the blog in question.  Dang.  My apologies for the error.

That being said, I assume Pierce Mattie owns the company, hires the staff and is legally responsible for whatever's on the blog, so my comments stand.  Anyone who puts on any weight, or in any way deviates from the cult of 'health' promoted by Mattie and his ilk is villified for being a slob. Of course, Mattie and others like him make their money off of an industry that promotes expensive 'health and beauty' products and services. If starving yourself and working out obsessively is what it takes to be beautiful in this world, I'll continue to choose to be ugly.

And Steve, while you and the 15 other people are beavering away on your blog, you might want to check whether you have Comments turned on, since not a single one of the beautful people you write for has been able to post a comment in the many months of site archives I clicked through. And if you don't accept comments, just admit it.