But her appearance is irrelevant. This is a woman who heads our public broadcaster in a precarious time, and led it to its most successful winter launch. She’s paved the way to huge premieres for Arctic Air and Mr. D, and returning stalwarts such as Dragons’ Den and Rick Mercer Report , not to mention — I have to plug this until it’s renewed — fall’s innovative critical darling Michael: Tuesdays & Thursdays.

So it’s hard to take it seriously when a random crank tweets to a Sun News personality: “just noticed @KStewartCBC sleevelesstop on her profile picture. She works for the CBC so is she a skank”.

Yes, please, protect us all from sinful upper arms. And semi-literate pundits.

It’s tempting to simply point to the hypocrisy of a society that judges powerful women by appearances. One of the dark sides of the House fandom is the undercurrent of misogyny toward co-showrunner Katie Jacobs, whose hair, fashion sense, and marital status were savaged by a small group of disgruntled fans with each unpopular creative turn. Fellow showrunner David Shore, who runs the writing room, was attacked for the actual words he said or wrote (I’m sure he’s thrilled).

I’ll spare you the rant about what that does to girls and point to the Miss Representation website. Because this isn’t just about women. How often have we heard Toronto mayor Rob Ford’s weight used against him, when his policies should be all the fuel we need? I’m pissed about the playground-level of discourse around serious issues we’ve come to accept all too often.

One of my favourite quotes in the interviews I did for the intervention article in Canadian Screenwriter was that the CBC was created to give Canadians something to complain about besides the weather. But don’t get me wrong: our public broadcaster is not above criticism. They deserve to be right in the line of fire often enough.

We don’t need to use Stewart’s upper arms against her any more than we need yet another cake joke against Ford. You want to attack the CBC? Or any leader, political or broadcast? Attack them with gusto – reasoned, intelligent gusto – or no one who doesn’t already side with you has any reason to listen to your petty bile. And people who do side with you should demand better.

We learned as kids that playground bullies aren’t equipped to make substantive criticism so they go for the easy target. OK, maybe we don’t learn it in those words, but we’re told something along those lines.

Maybe we need to start demanding more substance of Internet idiots, journalists, our friends and even ourselves. Next time I mock Justin Bieber’s hair, remind me it’s his music I dislike.

For example, if I had meant to hold an online charity auction, and had researched the logistics and estimated the time and the likelihood of raising more than I could comfortably just donate myself, I probably would have said to hell with it and given Kids Help Phone $50.

But even after spending an entire weekend emailing and packing and shipping after the Friday close of the auction I accidentally held, I’m so glad I didn’t actually plan it and give myself the opportunity to abandon it.

I started the TV, eh? website in much the same accidental way. I’d written something about how Canada needed a site like The Futon Critic that had information on Canadian shows. Someone said “if you see a need, why don’t you start it?” After my initial “why would I? And I don’t have time” I started it quietly, on a whim one night, figuring if no one cared I’d abandon it. That was 6 years ago.

With the auction, I had the vague thought that I’d get some prizes from my contacts and have a draw to encourage people to donate to a good cause during the Christmas season. I didn’t know what prizes or what cause or exactly how I would do the draw. Whatever. Details.

I started by asking some of my TV industry friends and acquaintances and PR contacts for items to donate, figuring if they couldn’t help the idea would die anyway. But they said yes. All of them. And they gave me really good stuff. And I realized I’d raise way more money through an auction than a draw.

So I asked for help deciding on a charity, and I asked other people for more stuff, and suddenly I had this full-blown auction with over 70 items up for bid on my hands before I had time to think, well, shit, how am I going to do this when I’ve never auctioned anything off before in my life? I don’t think I’ve even bought anything in an auction. But I got fascinated by the mechanics of it, and the setting up of my WordPress site to host it, and the psychology of bidding.

Not nearly as suddenly we raised over $6,500 for Kids Help Phone, and there’s still one package left that got caught at customs and a couple other smaller items that winning bidders are re-donating to the cause. When I filled out their Third Party Event form I told Kids Help Phone I wanted to raise $2,000 – I didn’t want to raise expectations too much, since I had no idea how to estimate how much money we’d raise. Secretly, though, I hoped for $5,000. So I’m thrilled at the almost-final total.

After sending out thank yous to donors, I’m getting some “we’ll be happy to donate next year” responses. Next year? Oh. Right. Maybe I will make it an annual event. And next time I’ll actually plan it using lessons learned from this year, especially the lesson that it was fun and worthwhile, and most of all that it’s inspiring to be part of this online community that responded to an initial vague idea with “sure, what can we do to help?”

I was intimidated by the form, specifically the scenarios where I was supposed to predict how I’d react in certain challenging situations, but mostly I put the idea aside when the Olympic job ate my life.

Before even getting to the form printing stage, I was required to read the mentor program requirements and the Big Intro for Big Sisters. And suddenly, after not thinking about it for decades, I wished I could go back and explain some facts to shy, quiet seven-year-old me.

I would have been around seven when someone initiated my application to be a Little Sister – I know that because I remember where we were living, but also because, as I found out a few years ago, seven is the minimum intake age. That was probably explained to me, but I hadn’t absorbed it.

My big brother had already been matched with a Big Brother so not only did I think I was an afterthought, I had in my little mind that Big Brothers were for boys who didn’t have fathers and Big Sisters were for girls who didn’t have mothers. But I had a mother. I thought there was something illicit about my application, though that was probably explained to me, too. But you don’t explain to a seven year old that she’s been identified as high-risk and in need of a mentor because her father’s dead and mother has schizophrenia. You explain that she might like someone to do fun things with.

I was never matched. That was probably explained to me too as the simple equation it is: more Little Sisters on the list than Big Sisters applying. But even a seven year old can do the math that some are chosen and some aren’t, and she wasn’t.

I don’t mean for this to be a poor little seven-year-old-me story. In fact it’s the opposite. Because she grew up to be me, and I’ve got a great life and a great career and great friends and I want to use my journey from her to me to help mentor another her. I’ve dug out the application again and this time I’ve even filled it out.

I would have been 14 when I bought the 1984/85 Edmonton Oilers program at a game, and I’d have collected the autographs over the season. It was a thing we did, us junior high school girls: pick a favourite player (mine was Andy Moog), go to the public practices at West Edmonton Mall or buy nosebleed tickets, and after the game hang out at the players’ exit with our autograph books or programs.

My regret now is that I got Wayne Gretzky’s signature in my little green book, gilt-embossed with “Autographs” on its cover, camp friends’ farewells and teachers’ encouragements signed inside, instead of in the program – it would have been a bigger selling feature today. But back then, I just wanted as many as I could get, whether I had the program with me or not, whether it was a big-name player or not. Another one in that green book was rookie Steve Graves, who never did play much in the NHL and who I remember as one of my favourites because he was so nice, so touched to be asked to sign.

1984/85 was the season after the team won their first Stanley Cup, gloriously defeating their then-nemeses. I remember being almost glad they hadn’t won in 83/84 when they first made the final against the New York Islanders, because I thought my joy might be too much to handle.

Then, I could name every player on the roster, in order of their jersey numbers. Now, I can’t even name all the teams in the NHL.

Was my interest back then partly a way to bond with classmates? I’d changed schools countless times in elementary school, and from tempermant and necessity developed mostly solitary interests. Maybe. Or maybe I was just an average Canadian, excited by our fast-paced official winter sport. In fact I watched televised games alone more often than not, riveted to the action of the ice.

Then, I even knew what icing meant. Today, I’m neither a hockey fan nor a collector of anything. Granted, growing up with a team that won 5 Stanley Cups before I was 20 might have set the bar too high to sustain my interest, but really I stopped following hockey after a brief stint in university of working for the team store during games. I didn’t have a television, I was going to school full-time and working two part-time jobs, and hockey wasn’t a priority anymore.

As an adult I also moved at least every two years – averaging a lot more back then, breaking the streak now that I bought a place a couple of years ago. But the moves, especially the one to Mexico, when I sold or gave away many of my possessions, erased any residual collector instinct I might have had.

Still, I kept that Oilers program. It had been so important to 14-year-old me. I had a vague thought that I could only give it to someone who would cherish at much as I had, but because it now represents experiences rather than a collection of signatures, that seemed impossible. Until now: I’m happy to give it up for Kids Help Phone, in memory of the kid I once was, a kid who could have used someone to talk to during a time I thought I wasn’t supposed to talk to anyone, a time when hockey gave me more joy than I thought I could handle.

Still, as the platform has matured and I’ve settled into my comfort zone with it, there’s generally a nice balance of serious discussion and frivolity I find less jarring, now.

So between Tweets, Facebook status updates, and longwinded blog posts, a lot of pixels have been dedicated to my thoughts, both serious and frivolous. As with all but the most oversharey of us, those online thoughts represent a fraction of what goes on in my little head. That’s partly because even I don’t care about every thought that goes through my brain, partly because I value my privacy and the privacy of my friends and family.

Reading my online output, I think you get a decent sense of my personality, an occasional glimpse of what’s going on in my life, but a poor sense of my daily joys and worries … which is true of most people, I’d guess.

I didn’t post about Amy Winehouse’s death, though I’m a fan of her music, and had feared her final self-destruction, and was saddened to hear that she didn’t manage to finally overcome her demons.

I also didn’t post about the mass murder in Norway because I had nothing to add to that discussion beyond what everyone felt: I was horrified. Duh. None of my friends are looking to me for that great insight into current affairs, none of my friends are in Norway, and I don’t believe in sending nebulous “good vibes” via Internet so all discussions I had were offline. I don’t need to prove I know or care about world events via Facebook status update.

But I know people who posted about both, or only Winehouse, and got slammed for caring about the dead artist instead of the dead Norwegians. My Twitter stream was full of Winehouse < Norway comments.

Which brings me to my point, finally: what kind of messed up thinking is it to believe we have to prove the depth of our feeling through a social media status update? Or that we have to rate tragedies and only care about the top one percent (as determined by … who?). How limited are we if we’re not capable of caring about both Norway and Winehouse? And why was Norway being held up as the gold standard of what people are supposed to care about?

I did post about the Canadian government’s decision to match donations to charities who are helping with famine relief in East Africa, an announcement that came a couple of days after the UN declared the famine and the same day as the Norway massacre. I don’t think everyone has a duty to give to any one specific cause, but in a period of feeling helpless about horrible news coming from so many sides, it made me feel better to take action. I know many people hadn’t heard about the extent of the crisis, or what our government is doing, or what we can do to help. You could tell me you have no interest in donating and I wouldn’t think less of you, but I’m glad you had the chance to evaluate where that cause fits in your list. There are so many things in the world we could choose to care about and do something about, but we have to pick or be overwhelmed with the choice.

Because I posted about Somalia and not Norway doesn’t mean I care more about Somalia, any more than posting about my cats means I care more about my cats than my friend struggling with a degenerative disease. It means I found it easier to form a coherent thought about Somalia over Norway, and that other people covered everything there was to say about Norway before I could and better than I could.

People posting about Amy Winehouse don’t necessarily care about her over, say, their friend who’s struggling with addiction, but maybe they aren’t airing their friend’s personal issues to everyone in their social media networks. Maybe Amy Winehouse is an artist whose work affected them personally and they want an outlet to express their grief. Maybe we feel a more personal connection to an artist whose work touches us than we do to the faceless victims of a massacre or famine.

If people think that’s wrong, then I’d like to hear their explanation of the purpose of art. Maybe they don’t care about talents like Cobain, Hendrix, Joplin, River Phoenix, Amy Winehouse dying so young, the waste of so much potential to addiction and the high price of fame, but why diminish others’ grief?

There was in most of the admonishments a whiff-to-a-stench of the sanctimonious, not just in judging those who were grieving Winehouse, but in judging Winehouse herself. To them, I’d say: if you think addicts who don’t turn their lives around by 27 don’t deserve to be mourned, you do not hold the moral high ground. Not every thought deserves to be posted via social media, and maybe criticizing other people’s grief is an example.

To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.

- William Wordsworth, Lines Written in Early Spring

The gates of Dachau

What man has made of man

In high school, like every self-respecting teenage girl who would go on to be an English major, I went through a phase of adoring the romantic poets.

In “Lines Written in Early Spring”, Wordsworth meant the disconnect between the natural world and the civilized world, but I’m no believer in the intrinsic good of man, and the line “what man has made of man” stuck with me more as a comment on our capacity to choose darkness over light.

I don’t know why or how – The Diary of Anne Frank was too feel-good for me? – but it was also in high school that I discovered Elie Wiesel and read his autobiographical novels Night, Dawn, and Day, a trilogy about his experiences during and after the Holocaust. It’s also when I saw the documentary Shoah by Claude Lanzmann, who interviewed survivors, witnesses, SS officers.

In case I sound like an overly serious teenager here, I also read Judy Blume and crushed on Corey Hart. But from the taste of history we got in school, I didn’t understand what man had made of man. I thought that by learning more it would be understandable, beyond simply a glimpse of what evils man is capable of perpetrating.

When I found out this year that I was being sent to Munich for work in June, my colleagues who travel there regularly had two sightseeing suggestions for me: beer gardens, and Dachau. They knew nothing of my historical interest — or my distaste for beer — only that it was a powerful experience of a part of our history we should never forget.

I’m not German or Jewish, but the “our” is important.

The remnants of a guard house at Dachau

I arrived in Munich, a pretty, orderly city, to find it more modern than I expected, apart from the historic centre. But history is hard to ignore. As my Fodor’s guidebook says, “Munich will always be associated with Adolf Hitler. Indeed, he once remarked ‘Munich is the city closest to my heart. Here as a young man, as a soldier and as a politician I made my start.’”

Wandering around the city streets, surrounded by smiling and friendly Bavarians, walking through the cemetery by our hotel, those words stuck with me too. I know the story of World War II through my grandfather’s eyes, a man who helped liberate a Dutch town from the Nazis, but those German gravestones with years that spanned the war – what had the people beneath them thought, felt, done?

I reject the idea that there’s something in the German character that made the Holocaust possible — as do the results of experiments such as Milgram’s experiment on obedience to authority figures. There is something in us that made the Holocaust possible, and it combined with a socio-economic climate and political force that centred it in Germany. The hatred and fear behind it went beyond those borders, and go beyond those borders today. Could it happen today? It does, on a smaller scale, in African countries we choose to ignore. And it could closer to home, given the right conditions.

The Jewish memorial, with a prayer room underground

On the plane to Munich I read The Help by Kathryn Stockett, a novel about African-American maids in 1960s Mississippi. Before I left I’d nearly finished The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, the true story of a black woman whose cells — unknown to her or her family — led to some of the greatest medical advancements, and whose family today can’t afford medical insurance.

Skloot dives into medical ethics, particularly the American medical community’s use of black patients for experimentation without consent. The infamous Tuskegee syphilis experiment occurred at the same institute where Lacks’ cells were mass produced … and occurred after the Nuremberg Code, which came out of the Doctors’ Trial against prominent Nazi physicians.

However, the Nuremberg Code wasn’t law in either Germany or the United States. It outlined principles for human experimentation, including the need for informed consent and avoidance of unnecessary physical and mental suffering. Many American doctors in the Tuskegee and Henrietta Lacks era weren’t fully aware of the guidelines, or thought of it as a Nazi code meant for those monsters, not for them.

But what if we’re all monsters, at least a small, dark part of us?

A disturbing thought I had after reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks was that at least part of what separates the Tuskegee and Nazi doctors from today’s scientists is regulation. A disturbing thought I had after visiting Dachau was that we try to separate ourselves from what we think of as inhuman acts, instead of examining what humanity is.

Behind the crematorium and gas chamber buildings

“To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.” – Elie Wiesel

The Dachau Memorial Site was established in 1965, through the efforts of survivors who didn’t want to allow history to be forgotten or relegated to a textbook.

Because I was in Munich for work, my options for visiting the site were on my first day in Germany or my last. I left it until last.

By that time, my coworkers had departed. I set off on my own to the lovely little town of Dachau, intending to join the guided group tour of the site. The train line was out of service that day so I arrived by bus to the terminal and chose to walk the half hour there.

The route from the station to the camp is the path prisoners took, lined with informational signs on the conditions in the camp and life in the town at the time – including how visible the prisoners were to townspeople.

Walking their path, trying to reconcile the beauty of my surroundings with the horrors of the past, recalling the words of Wiesel and Shoah, I found myself again feeling helpless to understand – not just the why of it, but the how of those lives who walked that path. My mind tried to put it in a familiar context. What if it were people I loved? If I had lived then and there, what choices would I have made? It’s unimaginable. I don’t want to imagine it.

By the time I got to the camp, through village parks, past the gorgeous former SS houses, I knew I couldn’t speak or be with others, especially strangers, so I decided to forgo the tour and wander on my own.

A sculpture based on the triangular patches used to identify the type of prisoner – Jewish, homosexual, Gypsy, etc.

You enter the Dachau Memorial Site through metal gates inscribed with the ironic Arbeit macht frei – work will set you free. Though it wasn’t one of the main death camps, Dachau was the first Nazi concentration camp in Germany and the model for those to come.

Museum exhibits give detailed information about the history of the camp and the treatment of prisoners – initially political prisoners, but soon Jews, Gypsies, Sinti, homosexuals, clergy, and other undesirables.

The museum, housed in the former administration buildings, isn’t terribly sophisticated. The displays consist mostly of text and images, with a few personal effects from former prisoners. Yet hours passed as I passed in front of one panel after another, hand pressed to mouth as if keeping the words in, though there were no words.

A sculpure depicting the death marches, when prisoners were evacuated on foot from the camp prior to liberation

We all know the broad details from history lessons: the lack of nutrition and medical care, brutal beatings and torture, medical experimentation, overcrowding, the complete dehumanization that occurred within the camps and without, a dehumanization that allowed people to fear and hate the prisoners and turn a blind eye to what was happening in their town’s back yard.

Then, finally, liberation. US troops, horrified by what they saw, were accused of killing guards after they’d surrendered, though charges were dismissed before witnesses were called. They also brought townspeople in to help clean up the camp, to force them to witness the conditions in the camp first-hand, including the bodies stacked like cordwood in rooms next to the crematorium.

Still, once you get past the panels about liberation, the horror isn’t over. Survivors lived there for years after the war was over, with no homes to go back to and no countries who wanted them. Some Jews returned to their homes to find themselves still the target of virulent anti-Semitism. The war was over; the prejudice wasn’t.

A memorial sculpture outside the administration building

Outside the museum is the huge, empty roll call area where prisoners were made to stand motionless for hours. The area is flanked by barracks with reconstructed bunks — which toward the end of the war crammed several prisoners into each bed — and memorial sculptures.

Though Dachau wasn’t primarily an extermination camp, over 25,000 died there. There were crematoriums to dispose of the dead, primarily from disease and malnutrition resulting from overcrowding and mistreatment, and gas chambers.

Those numbers don’t represent the real death toll, however, since prisoners were often transported to other camps to be executed.

Behind the buildings that house the crematorium and gas chambers are wooded paths that were home to shooting ranges and mass graves, more juxtaposition of natural beauty and man-made horror to absorb.

The path behind the crematorium and gas chamber, lined with shooting ranges and mass graves

“To remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all.” – Elie Wiesel

On the grounds of Dachau there is a Jewish memorial, a Catholic memorial, the Protestant Church of Reconciliation, a Russian Orthodox chapel, and a Carmelite convent. If it’s difficult to reconcile nature with these atrocities, it’s even more difficult to reconcile religious belief with them.

In Night, Wiesel talks about the loss of faith: “Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.”

But there has to be some hope out of such horror. I find hope in remembering the past, realizing that it’s part of us today, and understanding that we have the power to choose light over dark, day over night.

Never again

(If you don’t have an older brother, I highly recommend you get one. In fact, in case this has been too sappy, let me add that some days I’d beg you to take mine.)

We timed the trip for the Montreal Jazz Festival, although that was more or less an excuse for making a decision about a time and place. Don’t get me wrong, the fest was a huge draw, too, but I’m not a big jazz fan.

Jazz Fest is more than jazz, and Montreal has one of the the biggest in the world. There’s blues, funk, and pretty straight-ahead pop and rock. The B-52s were the closing act, for example – though we weren’t around for them. The names we missed out on should give you a taste of the fest’s variety (and our lack of advance planning): Prince, Robert Frampton, Diana Krall, Sade.

And our trip to Montreal was more than Jazz Fest. I did this with Egypt as a low-effort way to get some pictures and trip comments posted, so I’m doing it again – here’s illustrated tweets of my Montreal trip:

Heading to Montreal on Saint Jean Baptiste Day, which Québécois celebrate by hating anglophones. (Not really. I hope.)

Front desk woman at charming, quaint hotel is charming, quaint. Broke her heart we were too tired to join Saint Jean Baptiste celebrations.

What to do the first rainy day in Montreal? Visit Indiana Jones, of course.

Absorbing the atmosphere of Old Montreal.

Going to see the cutest little Chinese terra cotta warriors (yup still raining).

One of the actual terracotta warriors on display. No pictures were allowed in this exhibit either, so this is a promo image.

 

Not so much a marching band as meandering band of New Orleans jazz.

 

Gorgeous sunny, lazy day in Montreal. Chilling on grass near Olympic Stadium after ride up tower, debating pros & cons of ever getting up.

We took the funicular up the tower for a spectacular view.

 

No guitars exploded at Guitar Explosion but between that & Blitz The Ambassador, some great blues & hiphop/Afrobeat/funk.

(Check out the Ambassador’s insane trombone player – loved him so much.)

 

Hoping Bootsy Collins rejoins his band onstage at some point. S: “Maybe a Bootsy concert is like a Krusty the Clown summer camp.”

(I couldn’t get any good shots of Bootsy but check out this photographer’s pics of the show.)

The Trombone Shorty/Bootsy Collins concert was good, except Bootsy came on for a few songs then left the stage for a long time, leaving his band to go it alone. He came back, did a couple of songs with his back to the audience, and left again. As did much of the audience.

 

Got a little lost getting to Mount Royal. Me: Well, it’s not the destination but the journey that counts. S: This journey kinda sucks.

We took an unnecessary train, waited for ages for a bus that didn’t come, got off at the wrong stop, but finally made it to the top of the (snicker) “mountain” at the centre of Montreal.

Steve hates getting his picture taken, and hates having it posted even more. But THIS is the pic he tells me I can post.

 

Great show by Fitz and the Tantrums at the Montreal Jazz Fest. Fitz is sporting the same hairstyle as Gary Oldman in The Fifth Element. Works for him.

(Steve pointed out after I tweeted this that I’d been saying Fitz’s lopsided bangs made me want to grab a pair of scissors. But, you know, the guy’s a lovely oddball – it did suit him.)

 

Ate tonight in a fabulous yet whimsical French restaurant with … this as napkins (used to be a clothing store).

 

Last night here. I’ll miss you Montreal. Maybe not the bacteria and yeast factory we kept passing, though.

No picture, and wouldn’t be the same without Smell-o-Vision anyway, but I wasn’t kidding.

]]> http://dianewild.com/2011/07/illustrated-tweets-from-montreal/feed/ 0 http://dianewild.com/2011/07/dan-mangan-still-very-nice/ http://dianewild.com/2011/07/dan-mangan-still-very-nice/#comments Mon, 11 Jul 2011 21:15:01 +0000 Diane http://dianewild.com/?p=994 Continue reading →]]> Vancouver threw a 125th birthday party on the weekend with free concerts in Stanley Park, and my previously admitted musical crush on Dan Mangan was solidified. He closed out the weekend with a packed show and came across as genuinely grateful for his home town’s support and thrilled at playing to an adoring crowd of thousands in the spectacular setting.

Check out the crowd on the last chorus of the last song of the night, his biggest hit Robots:

Onstage with him is Mayor Gregor Robertson as well as musicians who had also played that weekend, including Said The Whale, Aidan Knight, Hey Ocean, and others.

Earlier, before plugs for next weekend’s Folk Festival and a Save the CBC pitch, Mangan had given the spotlight to Aidan Knight, bringing the younger singer onstage to sing his single Jasper while Mangan sang backup. (Vid is from another performance. It’s not a great summer here but there’s no snow.)

While what I’ve heard live of Mangan’s upcoming album, Oh Fortune, indicates his previous, Nice, Nice, Very Nice will likely remain my favourite, add his support for causes such as homelessness and cystic fibrosis to his generous musicianship, and Mangan remains a worthy musical crush.

Full judgement on the album will have to be reserved until it’s released September 27, but here’s a couple of acoustic versions of two of the most memorable songs I’ve heard from Oh Fortune – I especially love the title track:

]]> http://dianewild.com/2011/07/dan-mangan-still-very-nice/feed/ 0 http://dianewild.com/2011/07/joy-to-the-blog/ http://dianewild.com/2011/07/joy-to-the-blog/#comments Fri, 08 Jul 2011 04:52:23 +0000 Diane http://dianewild.com/?p=992 Continue reading →]]> Last night I was scrounging around the old blog to find the name of the textbook that reprinted one of my articles (fruitlessly – apparently I didn’t post about it – so thanks, Google Books search, for letting me know it was Electronic Media Criticism: Applied Perspectives by Peter B. Orlik .) It was part of my mission to create this still-a-work-in-progress website to collect all my online activities in one place, but it led to me poking around the archives, reliving Edmonton as Egypt and Egypt as Egypt, for example.

And as egotistical as it sounds, I missed me. That is, I miss the me who used to take joy in writing and sharing for no reason, before the Olympic job sucked my life away and then, after a brief reboot, before I let the joy get sucked out of blogging.

So I’m rebooting again and reclaiming the joy. I’ll leave the old blog to collect dust over on Blogspot, but I’ve imported the personal-essay-like-objects here. I won’t continue linking to things I do for TV, eh?, etc. because that’s what the rest of this site does – gives a place for everything, without everything being pushed into one stream. This will be my place for  those “random thoughts on life that swirl together in my little brain and try to collide into one cohesive idea,” my unified theory of nothing much, may that name rest in peace.

]]> http://dianewild.com/2011/07/joy-to-the-blog/feed/ 0 http://dianewild.com/2010/11/thankful-to-be-thankful/ http://dianewild.com/2010/11/thankful-to-be-thankful/#comments Thu, 25 Nov 2010 21:20:00 +0000 Diane http://dianewild.com/2010/11/thankful-to-be-thankful/ Continue reading →]]>

I completely missed Canadian Thanksgiving this year – something about going from Egypt to Edmonton to LA that day and working as soon as I hit the ground. Today is American Thanksgiving, which, oddly, I only ever celebrated the two years I lived in Mexico, where they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving at all.

But while I got screwed out of turkey and pumpkin pie this year, I find myself reflecting on what I’m thankful for lately, and today seems like a good opportunity to express it. So pardon the sappiness.

I could examine my life and focus on what’s lacking, but I (mostly) choose not to. And when I do succumb to the negative, that’s why emo music was invented.

But how could I experience such an incredible Egyptian vacation with such an incredible person and not feel grateful for the means to travel, the ability to appreciate the world around me, and the company of someone who knows me so well and still voluntarily spends time with me?

How could I not feel grateful for a job that gave me such a great work experience in Los Angeles, and at the same time the opportunity to see some wonderful people I don’t get to see often enough?Also, I got a personal tour of NASA JPL. That is insanely cool.

I don’t need international travel to consider myself lucky, either. I’m thankful for the ability to appreciate the beauty of the snow falling, the taste of a pumpkin latte, the warmth of a fuzzy cat, the comfort of solitude and of knowing my friends are a phone call or text away if cabin fever descends.

I look at my life and the people in it and realize I would have to be the biggest ingrate to not be thankful every day, not just Thanksgiving Day(s). And I’m thankful for the ability to be thankful for what I have.