Kudos to Jean

I’m normally not the biggest fan of Jean Chrétien normally. However, this is I think the third occasion since Sept. 11th that I’ve been proud of him. I was also proud when he said something during his fundraiser speed about Canada’s role is to give hugs, and he expressed reticence to agree to sending Canadians to battle in this upcoming ‘military event’ (I won’t call it a war).

Powell’s

So I discovered Powells.com today.

And finally, I found an online bookstore that feels like I’m wandering through Elliot Bay or Duthie’s on Fourth. They’ve managed to imbue their entire site with an atmosphere of book-loving. I’m not sure if it’s their collection of interesting interviews with interesting authors, or the water-color images, but this site has character. And nothing is more important to my book-shopping experience than character. It’s why I’ll shop at the Granville Book Company instead of Chapters. And curiously, while the GBC has maybe 1/100th the stock of Chapters, I’ve almost always found what I was looking for. And often times, things that I wasn’t looking for, but want anyways.

Mmm…now I want to go buy books. Like the new Irvine Welsh. Or that Samual Delany book Caterina was talking about.

SHiNDiG, week 3!

So I missed SHiNDiG last week, my bad. I apparently didn’t miss too much, however.

This week, I managed to miss the first band, as Leah had invited some friends over in a little goodbye get together for Hao-Chun (sp?), a friend of hers who is moving to Taiwan.

Mark assures me that I didn’t miss much by describing the first band as being radio-friendly, a little like Soul Decision, only rockier. Hmm, so in other words, they sucked.

The second band, who’s name is Shrimp Meat, was great. A punk trio in the oldest sense of the word, they would’ve looked and sounded right at home at CBGB’s some 20-plus years ago in NYC. They totally rocked. A nice mix of tuneful instrumentals and catchy, intelligent lyrics. Their last song was you’re basic punk anthem called ‘Social Class Warfare’, I assume. The chorus was:

Social class warfare!

Build another fence!

Social class warfare!

Build another fence.

The song ended with the chorus, followed by: ‘you fuck!’. Anyhoo, really, really great band, who’d I’d love to see again, even if they did sound a little dated. Mm – that’s right, and dressed the part too. The bassist was a woman wearing a mesh top over a 1-shouldered thing, under a green hunting-vest. She wore cut of jean-like things over striped stockings & big-assed combat boots. Her hair was all short, except for a section on the top, that was long and kinda hanging over the side. She was even wearing big, angular, dangly earrings. All that was missing from her get-up was egyptian-influenced eye-liner and she’d be full on 1979.

Continue reading “SHiNDiG, week 3!”

Nobel for Bush?

From the Globe and Mail:

‘A group of Norwegian academics on Tuesday nominated U.S. President George W. Bush for the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, but only if he can bring suspected terrorists to justice without starting a new war. Writing in the Norwegian daily Dagbladet, they said their proposal is designed to make people look beyond tit-for-tat violence as a way to resolve conflict. The winner of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Oct. 12. The group said its nomination is for the 2002 prize — allowing the world to see how Mr. Bush tackles the crisis.’

I really like the thought, but I don’t really see that happening, do you?

%d bloggers like this: