Up in Ontario

Maple-Nut Barbecue Chicken

Next time you're faced with chicken breasts for dinner and you're looking to do something a little different, try this.

Place the chicken breasts in a mixing bowl. Add some good quality olive oil, about a teaspoon of maple syrup per breast and any combination of the following spices: a few twists of coarse-ground black pepper, a pinch of cumin, a whack of chili powder and an appropriate balance of salt, seasoning salt and garlic salt. Then add as much nutmeg as you think appropriate. Throw the chicken breasts about in the bowl until they're well coated in the marinade. Add some soya sauce if you like.

Start your barbecue and set the burner(s) to high. Let it warm for about 10 minutes, then (optionally) spray the grill with olive oil. Lay your chicken breasts onto the grill with the better-seasoned side down. Brush the remaining marinade from the mixing bowl onto the breasts. Close the lid and let the heat collect and do its magic. Flip the breasts once after about 4 to 6 minutes, depending on the heat of your grill and the thickness of the breasts. When they're done, remove them and shut off the burner(s) and the gas. My mother insisted on always asking if we'd shut off the gas at home so it's a habit now.

Roll and few fresh basil leaves together and slice them thinly with a good chef's knife. Crush some almonds and cover the chicken with the crushed almonds and basil and serve. Let me know your results and any variations you come up with.

Unusual Dictionaries of English

Here at Up in Ontario central we have a keen interest in how people use the English language. Two sites have come to our attention in the past week and it's our editorial decision to share them.

First, the 100 Most Often Mispronounced Words. Read through the list and laugh at the mistakes people make, calm and assured in your own superiority of diction. Then oops! one word makes the list and you find yourself saying, "So there's only one r in sherbet."

Second, the Dictionary of the Non Verbal focuses on the messages we send and receive every day without words. Make sure to look into the Existential Crunch, the Big Mac, the Barbie Doll and especially the Love Signal.

Dictionary: Opinion presented as truth in alphabetical order. — John Ralston Saul, The Doubter's Companion, 1994

Spartan at the Ridge Theatre

The Duck and I visited the Ridge Theatre last night to see Spartan, a film written and directed by David Mamet. The Ridge is my favourite theatre since it presents a great selection of movies and since it also serves the best popcorn in Vancouver, according to my own review of the popcorns of Vancouver theatres. David Mamet is one of my favourite screenwriters because his films always present interesting characters, quick dialogue and great plots with a minimum of ego and commerce-driven Hollywood horseshit.

We arrived at the theatre early. I had eaten a light dinner to save room for popcorn. I lined up while the Duck hit the bathroom. Just as I stepped up to the counter to place my order I heard the man in the line beside me place his order: "I'd like a jumbo popcorn, layered butter, a large diet pepsi and junior mints." I clearly stood beside a regular.

The Duck met me in the lobby and we waited in line a second time so she could buy a hot chocolate. The women's bathroom in the Ridge is upstairs, along with the projection room and a crying room for parents with children, and the stairs run up along a mirrored wall from lobby where we stood.

The line where we waited moved forward slowly and the Duck told me what was going on upstairs. "A couple is bent over changing their baby. You can see they're new to it and they're just tickled, cooing and making faces. I walked by and it looked like they were stuffing a turkey."

I looked up and in the mirrored reflection I saw the two young parents stooped over, one poking downwards, the other shaking and making faces. All I could see of the baby was its white fleshy legs sticking up in the air like two drumsticks.

"That damn baby," I said, just as I remembered the main character saying in the Donald Barthelme short story, Chablis:

My wife wants a dog. She already has a baby. The baby's almost two. My wife says that the baby wants the dog.

My wife has been wanting a dog for a long time. I have had to be the one to tell her that she couldn't have it. But now the baby wants a dog, my wife says. This might be true. The baby is very close to my wife. They go around together all the time, clutching each other tightly. I ask the baby, who is a girl, "Whose girl are you? Are you Daddy's girl?" The baby says, "Momma," and she doesn't just say it once, she says it repeatedly, "Momma momma momma." I don't see why I should buy a hundred-dollar dog for that damn baby.

Salsa From Scratch

Two weeks ago when I made my weekly trip to the local produce shop I found an abundance of large, ripe tomatoes at a low price. The winter crop had just arrived from the vast hothouses that dominate the fields south of Vancouver, where the soil used to sprout crops instead of supporting the beams of transparent barns. The tomatoes were huge and firm. I bought about a dozen and lugged them home, unsure of what I had planned but sure I had made a good purchase.

The tomatoes sat on the countertop for a day to soften. The options I considered for them included spaghetti sauce, lasagna sauce, marinara sauce and tomato soup. Of those, I had made all of them before except tomato soup and I now associate tomato soup with sickness, so I ruled it out. I decided I would make salsa.

In a large stewing pot I warmed some olive oil and grated garlic into the warmed oil. I mashed the garlic so its juice mixed with the oil. I cut 3/4 of the tomatoes into small sections and blended them to a rough coarseness, then added them to the pot. In went chili powder, onion, salt and pepper.

I stirred my soupy salsa and let it come to a slow boil. What else did I have in the fridge? I diced green pepper, red pepper, Italian parsley, dried cumin, cayenne pepper and some chilis that had sat in our fridge for a long time since they were too hot to eat. These I added carefully and in small amounts at a time, tasting the salsa after each chili. The spice level started to rise to a nice level but something savoury was missing. I added red wine, a bay leaf, lime zest and the juice of that same lime. Now we were cooking.

The sauce started to reduce as it simmered but the process took a long time and the hour grew late. I turned the element to its lowest setting, placed the lid on the pot and let it simmer overnight. In the morning I discovered a dark and rich and dense sauce full of flavour. I let the pot cool and placed it in the fridge. That night, I cut the rest of the tomatoes, diced more red peppers, more yellow peppers, more italian parsley, more spices and more onions and added them to the pot. I heated the pot and dipped a chip into the salsa. Delicious. The savoury sauciness of the stewed ingredients contrasted with the crisp brightness of the fresh ingredients. I dipped another chip and called for the Duck to try things out for herself.

I flipped the element off and let the pot cool, instructing the Duck to hold off on devouring the salsa while I headed to the grocery store to buy jars. When I returned I washed the jars and started to fill them with salsa. Now 10 jars sit in our fridge. I've given one jar away already and await feedback from its recipients. Next time, I'll back off on the red wine and pump up the saltiness. If you're looking for measurements on the ingredients above, you'll just have to use your imagination and a big pot, since you can always add more ingredients to balance out anything you might have been overexuberant with.

Anyone want to try some salsa?

The Spirit of Tap Dance

Looking to celebrate national tap dance day on May 24? Interested in seeing some great Vancouver dance talent perform in an intimate theatre for a reasonable price? Want to learn more about the rich history of tap dance and its deep roots on the west coast?

Check out the fine rhythmic dance performance of the West Coast Tap Dance Collective in a performance called The Spirit of Tap.

I have been to past performances by these west coast tappers and they always deliver a street-smart, energetic and charismatic show. Young students get up and trade licks with the masters and amateurs get a chance to perform with some of the best professionals anywhere. Full details can be found at the West Coast Tap Dance website.

Join the tap dance community this May in celebration of the joyous noise we call tap dance.

This year’s Spirit of Tap performances pay tribute to local tap artist Jim Hibbard. Special guests include Van Porter, MADD Rhythms Canada, Tap Co., The Hot Flash Hoofers, The Urban Tap Squad, Razzmatap, Pat Lambier, The Blue Riff Project, Beat Feet Divas and dancers representing 13 Lower Mainland studios.

Join Jim Hibbard at a post-show reception. Appetizers will be provided by Provence Grill.

Tickets are available from Surrey Arts Centre Box Office: 604-501-5566
$20 adults
$15 students/seniors
$40 show + post-show reception

Show times: 2 and 6 p.m.

(Disclosure: The Duck is on the board of the West Coast Tap Dance Collective.)

A Sweet Ride

On Saturday afternoon I dropped in to Jericho Beach and the birthday party of Steve Hanline. Steve was in fine form as we barbecued, enjoyed the weather and set up a horseshoe pit that instigated a heated horseshoes showdown. I can't remember who ended up winning.

By 6 pm we retired to a local pub where we met other friends and honoured our reservation. The Duck dropped in and pointed out a fancy cruiser bike hanging from the rafters. We asked around and found out that the cruiser bike was to be given away that night as the grand prize of a three-day cinco de mayo party that had been ongoing at the pub. For certain menu items and drinks, patrons received a bead necklace. The patron with the most necklaces at the end of the night pedalled away with the cruiser bike.

Well, you can imagine for yourself what happened next.

The winning total of beads, as sported by Steve in this photo, was 227. Happy birthday, Steve!

Juntas and Gatherers

Mentioning Adbusters in yesterday's post brought me to their website for the first time in a coon's age. There, I came across a fascinating timeline of 163 US Interventions (Flash player required) around the world.

America was founded by revolutionary ideals: the rejection of tyranny, the embrace of equality and the protection of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." But two hundred years later, what is the promise of America?

This is an archive of 163 US interventions, a multi-faceted catalogue of coups, humanitarian incursions, covert actions, proxy armies, freedom fighters/terrorists and multilateral offensives. Out of this legacy, a complex picture emerges.

To read through the list of interventions is exhausting. But it also offers a glimpse into the supporting mechanisms and costs of US military, economic, cultural and social expansion. The list includes recurring targets in Latin American (Haiti, Mexico, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, El Salvadore, Honduras), the Far East (the Phillipines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Korea, China, Japan), Africa (Angola, Somalia) and the Middle East (Iran, Iraq, Israel). The list grows so long, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean, that to exclude the contries not intervene upon would have created a shorter list. The official US doctrine of Manifest Destiny long ago died out as an acceptable justification for expansionism and suppress of peoples, but it continues to provide the most accurate ongoing motif for the promotion of that euphamistic entity, American interests abroad.

So here we see the great value of history. Our present geopolitical situations are not part of a new era, without precedence or context, they are continuations of patterns established over long periods. It's no wonder that whenever a new government comes to power one of the first acts they and their friends undertake is to try to change the popular memory of the people and the education systems, libraries and information sources that go along with that memory. Such as what is happening right now in the US with the war on librarians.

Moral Myopia in Advertising

I came across an interesting article today in an unusual place, The Baptist Standard. The article focused on a study conducted by a University of Texas professor that found "many advertising executives fail to see any ethical implications of their work, and if they do see moral problems, they refuse to talk about them."

Professor Meme Drumwright, associate professor of advertising at University of Texas at Austin, and Patrick Murphy, a marketing professor at the University of Notre Dame, interviewed more than 50 advertising practitioners at 29 agencies in eight cities to discover how they perceive ethical issues. They collected their results into a paper and concluded that they were dealing with an industry characterized by the alliterative twins, "moral myopia" — a distorted moral vision that keeps ethical issues from coming into focus — and "moral muteness" — an unwillingness to talk about moral concerns.

Now, I'm not usually a fan of media outlets whose missions statements include references to the almighty, but this article piqued my curiousity and didn't offend me on the sanctimonious or righteousness scales. In fact, religion isn't even introduced in the article until the end, where its tacked on (professor Drumwright tells us that "there is a huge role for the church to play"), which serves the same function as a boilerplate to the piece, similar to an About the Company section to round out a press release.

From my experience, the findings of the report seem to be perfectly in line with the purpose of advertising. If anyone in the industry stopped to think about what they were doing and its consequences the industry would come to a standstill. Basically the ad industry exists to sell all of us more/new/different crap that we don't need. It treats humans as abstract targets and tries to trigger a response in them (BUY!) by any means necessary. It manipulates individuals in groups for commercial gain.

So the results of the study do not surprise me. Why would anyone want to consider the ethical implications of the latest campaign to sell more Ford pickups, new AquaFresh toothpaste or a multipack of Kleenex tissues? Some of the brightest minds of the past few generations have devoted themselves to finding new ways to make people buy, and so we have bought in ever-increasing amounts. This is our defining and unifying experience as a culture: consumerism. But the consequences are never part of the pitch.

To get to the heart of the matter, the article from The Baptist Standard reinforces and validates with academic credentials something that I have thought and felt for a long time. Working in advertising stinks and is amoral to being with. Its basic purpose is dehumanizing and demoralizing. People working in advertising are some of the most voracious consumers to be found anywhere. They spend so much time and effort selling things to others that they sell themselves at the same time: on the products, on the consumption, on the lifestyle. They hear the stories in the advertisements so often that the narrative becomes overwhelming, consumer stories end up as the first ones that we are able to tell.

I know the symptoms of amorality and the circumstances of compartmentalization because I work in marketing and advertising. Being a writer only rarely pays the bills. With a writer's skills, what else can you do? Sit on the boardwalk and toss off limericks to lovers strolling by, like a busking bard? To make sure that life in the big city continues I have worked for the past few years in the marketing of different products and services such as vacation travel, banking, pharmaceuticals. And from my experience, to consider the value of your work or its consequences is to depress yourself. No matter how I have pretied up my job by title or motivation or with co-workers, the sense of being an intellectual prostitute, a shill, a creative mind for hire, a communicator to act as the conduit for any message has never gone away.

Am I being too harsh? Too much Adbusters in undergrad? We all need to make a living, after all. Life is full of contradictory points of view to reconcile. I'm not too precious that I shouldn't have to work. I just wish I knew of a better way to make it work.

Leah McLaren Redux

Having noticed in previous columns here that Canadians reactions to Leah McLaren's columns in the Saturday The Globe and Mail are strong, to say the least, I am pleasantly surprised to find that someone has done something about it. No, No, No Leah describes itself as "a blog dedicated to getting Globe and Mail columnist Leah McLaren to write good columns!"

And then the other shoe drops: there are tons of folks out there knocking around Leah McLaren's writing.

• Leah McLaren: Canadian Asshole
  
• Public displays of annoyance
  
• How did she get this job? (PDF)
  
• Another blogger, so demoralized about Leah, he/she is moving to the USA!
  
• Is it love or loathing?
  
• Leah quits smoking
  
• The Environmental Illness Society of Canada
  
• A Book is Sold
  
• Leah McLaren's High School Confidential

So why has one mediocre columnist elicited such a wide and strong response? Well, when you're supposed to represent the voice of a generation (her column is offensively titled Generation Why?) in the newspaper of the Canadian establishment, expectations are high. And when the generation you're supposed to represent has a form of participatory journalism, many small soapboxes are stood on to rebutt.

In truth I feel some guilt for writing about McLaren's column since it just serves to raise its profile further. It also aligns me with something that begins to feel like the tall poppy syndrome. And the reactions seem personal for many people. They call her Leah though they may never have met her. The self-referential stink of her column seems like a personal afront to them. It's almost as if people think that writing is a zero-sum gig and because McLaren gets so many column inches and such a prominent platform to represent a generation that other voices that could be interesting from that same generation don't get a chance to be heard. Oh wait, that is pretty much how it is.

So, to clarify our position here at Up in Ontario, sorority girls with small noses doing well professionally: good. Lousy writing getting more attention than it deserves: hard to swallow. Perhaps there is better writing to come from Leah McLaren in her novel.