felis_ultharus

So I've been trying to review some of the books that have been sitting on my to-review pile for ages.

( review continues for La Nuit Des Princes Charmants by Michel Tremblay )

In short, it's a perfect little poem of a book. There's not a word here that doesn't need to be.

In other news, it's Victoria Day Eve here in Canada. Across the country, little ones are hanging up stockings and putting out cookies for when Queen Victoria glides over in her gilded carriage drawn by pomeranians. After that, we sing the Victoria Day carols, tell the kids about the true nature of Victoria Day, and then send them all out to manufacture snuff and clean chimneys for a night.

Canadian holidays are weird like that.

Also, I've updated my historical blog, about the disappearance of the Two-Spirit traditions in Canada.

An important subject, but a multi-tiered minefield to walk through. For starters, I'm a white guy writing about Native history.

Then there's the issue of gender variance and sexual orientation. The post-1950s West sees these as very different things, but we're pretty much the only time and place that did, and so in all the literature there's snarking between people who claim the historical Two-Spirit identity for trans history, and those who claim it for gay history.

Given that no one from the early 19th century and before is around to interview in depth, I've hedged my bets and not tried to make any positive declarations.

Happy Canada Day! It's been 142 years since Confederation, and depending on how you count, we could four hundred years old or longer. John Ralston Saul argues we're effectively thousands of years old, because our usual way of counting leaves out aboriginal peoples who contributed so much to this country.

But still we like to think of ourselves as a young nation, naive in everything we do and likely to fail at any time.

I've done very little lately, aside from writing and working and researching -- I've half-written another article for my historical website. This heat has made me feel sluggish.

I've also been playing a fair bit of the Persona series. The third was brilliant -- one of the best endings of any game -- and the fourth game is even better, and even stranger. For example, I just defeated a giant decaying teddy bear that kept quoting Postmodern philosophy and hurtling bolts of pure nihilism at me. I defeated it with game's patented Jungian psychology combat system.

Using Jung to beat Foucault -- I doubt John Ralston Saul has ever played a video game, but somehow I think he would have approved.

Politics

Well, it's been quite a week. Harper's bought himself some time, but at a massive cost of credibility. Ontario's economy is getting worse and Quebeckers are disillusioned. You don't take power in this country without the two most-populated provinces.

It's too sdoon to tell for sure, but I'm trying to keep optimistic. The Liberals are trying to push Dion off the plank faster than before, for having committed the sin of poor video editing and failure to hire a decent courrier service. I really hope that decent judgement prevails on their part, or that Michael Ignatieff suddenly shaves his head, renounces the world, and runs off to a Buddhist monastery in Laos or something like that.

Meanwhile, Martha Hall-Findlay said on CBC's The House that this last week Conservatives have been offering highly-illegal bribes to Liberals to get them to cross the floor.

If the Liberals don't pull a David Emerson en masse, and don't chicken out, Harper's lost. And if they do, it's hard not to imagine the Liberal Party getting wiped out in favour of the NDP next election. They'd have no money, no trust from the public, no common principle to rally around. In some ways, this really is their last chance.

Poor Dion. I feel sorry for the guy -- he was the best of the three presented at the last Liberal leadership convention. And frankly, I wonder if the pundits have it backwards and he prevented an even greater collapse of the Liberal Party than would've happened under Ignatieff or Rae.

I'd like to wish a happy birthday to Quebec City, founded 400 years ago today ^_^

This is actually a more honest date for the founding of the country than the 141st-birthday we celebrated a couple of years ago, which really only marked the point when de facto democracy became official and backed up by a constitution, and when some aspects of the law of four provinces were merged. The people who were here already had a rich culture and an identity separate from any of the mother countries, which came into existence starting 400 years ago today.

So effectively, this isn't just Quebec's birthday, but Canada's as well.

And while we're on the subject of national pride, I'm really happy that Henry Morgentaler got the Order of Canada, the country's highest honour.

For those of you who don't know, Morgentaler is the doctor responsible for getting safe, legal abortions in this country. He's a Dachau concentration camp survivor who came over here after World War II. He performed abortions illegally in the 1960s, and spent a time in jail, and a lot more time in court. His clinic was bombed. But 20 years ago, he won the Supreme Court case that overturned the abortion laws.

As he's quite elderly, there was worry that he would die before anyone gave him the Order of Canada -- you can't give that award posthumously. Anti-abortion groups are up in arms, of course.

I finished Michael Adams' Fire and Ice this week. Adams is Canada's most prominent private pollster, and the book is the result o a decade's worth of studies that show that Canadians' values are actually becoming more different from those of the Americans, contrary to the usual assumption.

It was an excellent book except for one tragic chapter about our differing histories. I really wish commentators on Canadian society would quit relying on their high school textbooks for their history. They might as well be going to a Magic 8-Ball -- "Was Lord Durham's assessment of the rebellions as 'two nations warring in a single breast' accurate?" Answer: "Outlook Not So Good."

Probably the most interesting chapter, though, was an appendix listing "Values Tracked Only in Canada." These were things that -- during their initial interviews -- many Canadians mentioned that they had strong positive or negative feelings about, but few if any Americans did.

(By "values" they mean everything from "ways of living life" and "things that are important day to day" to the grand theories and paradigms of life. )

Sadly, Adams doesn't often tell us which things Canadians talked about a lot because they liked, and which ones they talked about because they thought they were bad things, though some are probably pretty obvious -- I have a hard time imagining anyone singling out polysensorality (my new favourite word) as a negative.

(Polysensorality is the belief that life should be sensual experience, but that too much emphasis is put on sight and not enough on the other four senses. Polysensorality is probably Adams' word for this hitherto nameless topic, but this was something apparently many Canadians felt passionate about.)

Some of the values that only Canadians mentioned were no surprise -- Canadians talked in large numbers about "Belonging to the Global Village" and "Flexibility of Gender Identity" and "Deconsumption"and "Openness to Others," while Americans didn't.

Much more surprising is that few Americans raised the topic of "Attraction to Physical Beauty" and "Attraction to Violence [in TV and games]" though maybe that's for same reason that the fish doesn't notice the water.

On the whole, it was a brilliant read. I'm now nearly finished Eleanor Rigby by Douglas Coupland.

I suppose there's still a little time to wish people a happy Canada Day! Hard to believe country's 140 years old.

I spent the holiday hanging out with good friends, and also researching some of the murkier depths of early Canadian history.

I'm sorry I've been neglecting journals. I've been captivated by history lately (my last entry was not great, but I've got a much better one to post tomorrow). I'll start back-reading tomorrow -- I promise.

First, some news stuff:

1. Canada will soon have a new Governor General named Michaëlle Jean. Most people in English Canada have never heard of her, though she's well-known enough in French Canada. Most of the comments have been good, but a few of the letters at the CBC and The Globe and Mail show that racism and sexism are alive and well in this country, unfortunately (Madame Jean is Haitian). Apparently, the fact that Canada has had two women of colour in row for GG indicates some kind of pandering political correctness, according to some of these people. The post has been held for 126 out of 138 years by men, and 132 out of 138 years by white people.
   
   
2. And speaking of unloved minorities in high places, the Crown Prince of Qatar -- the man groomed to be the next Emir -- was caught in a barfight in a British gay bar with his boyfriend. Qatar, as I understand it, is an absolute monarchy, except that the monarches are required to follow Sharia law, which prescribes death for homosexuality. No word on whether the 25-year-old prince can return to Qatar and not be afraid for his life :/

And now, for personal stuff, which is a lot more cheerful:

1. First, congratulations are in order to snowdaemon for her permanent residency status. She'll make a great addition to the country.
   
   
2. My writing continues apace. I think I'm coming out of one of my worst slumps, now, and I'm working on far too many pieces at once.
   
   
3. I think everyone's a go for Gravitation tonight. Just so we're on the same page, 8pm tonight, at foi_nefaste's, and I'll be bringing the video (episodes 7, 8, and 9 tonight, I guess...?)