Up in Ontario

Simpsons Quotes for Everyday Use

The Onion AV Club presents: Simpsons quotes for everyday use.

My favourite?

Quote: "Don't praise the machine."

Episode: "Bart Gets An Elephant" (3/31/94)

Context: Air-headed KBBL DJs Bill and Marty find their jobs in jeopardy when their boss threatens to replace them with a machine, the DJ 3000. It can play music automatically and has three varieties of "inane chatter," such as "Hey, hey. How about that weather out there? Whoa! That was the caller from hell. Well, hot dog! We have a wiener!" Bill chuckles "Man, that thing's great!", but Marty chides him.

Real-life uses: Any time a person speaks positively about something that's a potential threat, or simply not worthy of compliments.

Perfect for everyday usage.

Worldwide Watercooler Reviews Up in Ontario

The affable and clever Jen over at the Worldwide Watercooler spent a week recently dipping her toes in the tropical waters of south Florida and the Cayman Islands. With her on her trip, she brought a copy of Up in Ontario, which she read and reviewed.

So, shucks, here's her review of Up in Ontario.

Leah McLaren in Vancouver?

Since somehow this blog has become an authoritative source of all things Leah McLaren, a few folks have sent me notices this morning that McLaren has been scheduled to read in Vancouver, at the Holt Renfrew store, sponsored by Lavalife.

(......)

Sorry. Had to take a moment to get over all of that: the Holt, the Lava, the shudder. Beejeezus.

Or is McLaren 'reading' in Vancouver? Her publisher doesn't list the event. So it's off? Don't know.

Instead of even thinking about hitting it, how about hitting BC Book and Magazine Week instead, which is culture about the world we live in. Tonight, April 26th, is the Magazine Cabaret and tomorrow is a Literary Tour of Vancouver.

Neil Young: Let's Impeach the President

On CNN, Neil Young gets interviewed by a woman who looks perpetually surprised. A snippet:

Interviewer: This music is already causing a stir. You've got one song called 'Let's impeach the President.' What is this song about?

Neil Young: It's a song that pretty well follows the title, just with a bunch of reasons. It's a long song.

Interviewer: Are you concerned that someone might think you're unpatriotic?

Neil Young: Ah no, I'm not concerned about that in the least. I feel like I'm exercising my right of free speech, which is what our boys are fighting for the Iraqi people to have. And I think that if we take it away from the people here in the United States we're taking a step in the wrong direction. That's what great about this free country and about all free countries is freedom of speech and the ability to express yourself. That makes us different from everybody else. So I'm not worried about that.

Watch for yourself, especially the well articulated bits about personal conscience:

Snoop Dogg, the Novelist

Snoog Dogg, the rapper, seems poised to become Snoop Dogg, the novelist. CBC reports:

Rapper Snoop Dogg is working on his first novel, scheduled for publication in the U.S. this fall.

Atria Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, is set to release the rapper's literary debut, entitled Love Don't Live Here No More, this October.

The book will tell the story of a young Southern California man struggling to get by amid dreams of becoming a hip-hop star.

The rapper, whose real name is Calvin Broadus, is a storyteller, Kathleen Schmidt, Atria's vice president and director of publicity, told online publishing industry website Book Standard.

"Books speak more to a female audience than does his music. So these novels give him an opportunity to show, particularly his female fans, another side," Schmidt said.

Love Don't Live Here No More is scheduled to be the first in a series of "street literature" the rapper will pen for Atria.

So I am to understand this is a move to appeal to women of Snoop? And the first in a series of street lit?

(.......)

My Shoes for Earth Day

Although it's a few days past Earth Day, today I managed to pick up a pair of shoes that satisfy my desire to live as natural-world friendly as I can. From the local Mountain Equipment Co-op, I present the Nike ACG Considered Rock Outdoor Lifestyle Shoes. Their long name belies livable comfort made from recycled materials. That, and they look a little more than alright too.

Pairs of these eco espadrilles are running short at the MEC, so if you're interested in minimizing your footprint (haw!), you'd better get a move on. I believe they may have been discontinued, which also means they've been discounted. Remember, wear the right socks when you go to try them on.

(If anyone from Earth Day Canada is reading this, please put the date of the reason you exist on one of the front pages of your website. April 22, how hard is that?)

The Economist Discovers Peer-Produced Media

Cross-posted from my ever-evolving Work Industries blog.

A friend and I have an ongoing discussion about technology and change. It goes like this: change opportunities in the organization she works for only really exist once The Economist writes about them. Before that, as far as her boss is concerned, nothing noteworthy has happened. From my experience, this kind of follow-the-established-follower mentality pervades many organizations. So I want to let you know that you (yes, all of you out there with tremendous frustration at not being able to sell your innovative ideas internally without some random external article) are not alone.

The best stories I get from my friend (because they provoke the most outrage in her) are when she tells me about her boss bringing copies of The Economist to her desk to show her articles. Topics like podcasting, blogs and wikipedia have recently appeared in The Economist, and dutifully, they have then appeared in her boss' outstretched hand at the corner of her desk.

'Look at this,' he'll say (as my paraphrase of her paraphrase). 'Isn't this interesting. Do you know about this? We should think about doing this.' Then he'll dawdle off to take a conference call, completely missing the fact, my friend assures me, that she had sent him an article on the exact same subject 6 to 10 months prior. A week later the boss will knock at her desk again to inquire how the new, new thing he'd pointed out was coming along.

At this point in her story my friend will make choking noise, squeals of derision and, if in dire straights, will violently shake her hands. I love it. This is the source of Dilbert resonance. I ask her to tell me more. I snort in agreement. I provoke her by calling to her attention the indifference with which her boss received the aforementioned article, 6 to 10 months prior. She indulges me and raises her rancour another level. It eats away at her like an unfilled cavity in a sensitive molar.

This story comes to mind because today I was pointed to an article in The Economist about new media entitled Among the Audience. The article introduces a broad survey that ropes in some of the bright lights of the current web vogueness. Its topic?

The era of mass media is giving way to one of personal and participatory media... that will profoundly change both the media industry and society as a whole.

Interesting and well written. I recommend it. Andreas Kluth does a nice job of laying the current cultural effects of digital technologies into a common and simple historical context, from Gutenberg's movable type to MovableType, the blogging software. There's also someone calling a big, brand-name media honcho an 'ignoramus!' which is something I don't think I've ever seen before.

Unfortunately, most of the components of the survey require me to sign up as an Economist subscriber to read, so I'll never know what it says. Audio files from some of the luminaries are also available, to anyone, though I have not listened to them.

I guess I should go warn my friend that her boss is due to come knocking.

Brokeback Prime Minister

Courtesy of OptimusCrime (via the CBC Radio 3 blog):

Who says the Conservative party is unfriendly to the same-sex vote?

Comments? Please.

Breaking News: Sleep-Retardent Ex-Girlfriends, Nerds, Nude Stamps and the Environment

The fine folks of Mind Hacks blog, who are the same fine folks who wrote the Mind Hacks book, point to an article in Null Hypothesis (Title: No Rest with the Wicked, PDF file, 29 KBs) about breaking new empirical research by one researcher on having a sleep-retardent ex-girlfriend. The researcher, Ryan Baker, described as a human computer interaction researcher, was trying to find out why he was sleeping poorly, so he undertook a reseach project to pinpoint the cause with a regression model.

His conclusion? His worst sleeps were when he slept with his girlfriend. So what does he go and do? He tells her:

I concluded by explaining that, due to her sleep-retardant properties, I could not continue to sleep with her, an act she termed "breaking up". I should mention that Hermina suggested that my data, being from an observational study rather than an experimental study, only shows correlations rather than causation, and that it was quite possible that I had only chosen to sleep at her apartment on nights when I was less tired, or that I had actually chosen to get less sleep on nights when I had come to her apartment.

She proposed that, instead of taking hasty action, we conduct an experimental study where we flip a coin each night to determine whether I would sleep at her apartment or my own, in order to prove a causative effect. Obviously, I rejected this suggestion. Although this study is insufficient to conclusively prove Hermina's causative role, this strong a correlation, and the importance of getting enough sleep, are sufficient together to suggest that action needs to be taken expeditiously.

Just in case you're wondering, Null Hypothesis bills itself as the journal of unlikely science. But the article is definitely fo' real.

In contradictory news, nerds make the best lovers.

In Canadian news, Canada Post's efforts to let folks make stamps of their own photos hit a snag when a Calgary man wanted to use topless photos of his wife as stamps. Frederick Potter claims Canada Post is censoring him and his Ukranain-born wife.

"It's arbitrary censorship," he said. "Would a picture of a baby on a bearskin rug be considered child pornography? ... Where does it end? "Having Oleanna on a postage stamp is kind of a celebration of her becoming a Canadian."

In an e-mail to the Potters, an employee with the Canadian Bank Note Company, which partners with Canada Post to offer the customized service, said they couldn't approve of the image due to Canadian flag etiquette.

"We'd want to see a ruling by the Department of Heritage that, in this case, the flag is deemed to be displayed in a manner befitting this important national symbol," the e-mail said.

Frederick said a number of different images submitted, including a nude shot, were all rejected.

Oleanna, who moved to Canada over three years ago, said she is surprised by the response and is taking it personally.

"I feel like I'm in a very conservative country," she said. "We were just going to send it on letters to my family and friends in Ukraine. My family has a nude picture of me on their wall -- in Ukraine that's normal."

Canadian flag etiquette! First this, what's next in our Conservative country? Perhaps, writers silenced for speaking out on global warming? Oh wait, that just happened!

Minister stops book talk by Environment Canada scientist

Environment Minister Rona Ambrose has stopped an Environment Canada scientist from speaking publicly about his own novel.

Mark Tushingham has written a science fiction novel called Hotter than Hell.
It is set in the not-too-distant future when global warming has made many parts of the world too hot to live in and has prompted a war between Canada and the U.S. over water resources.

Tushingham was scheduled to speak in Ottawa about his book and the science underpinning it. But an order from Ambrose's office stopped him.

"He got a directive from the department, cautioning him not to come to this meeting today," said his publisher Elizabeth Margaris of DreamCatcher Publishers in New Brunswick. Margaris had driven from New Brunswick to attend the speech.

"So I guess we're being stifled. This is incredible, I've never heard of such a thing," she told CBC Radio.

A spokesperson for Ambrose said the speech was billed as coming from an Environment Canada scientist and even though his book is a work of fiction, he would appear to be speaking in an official capacity.

Tushingham was ordered to cancel the speech because he didn't follow the proper process, the spokesperson said. He also has cancelled some TV and radio interviews about the book.

Stephen Harper says he was not aware of the details, but his government was elected on a platform that included developing a new plan to deal with climate change.

"And I not only hope, but expect, that all elements of the bureaucracy will be working with us to achieve our objectives," he said.

Harper has been criticized for the tight control he wants to exercise on what Cabinet ministers and civil servants say in public.  He also opposes the Kyoto protocol, which could help slow global warming.

See also, from the Rick Mercer Report Rona Ambrose's silences on the environment as a priority (Apr. 11: Rick and Rona Ambrose making sweet syrup), which she should know, she's environment minister. I remember when Mercer did his show after the cabinet was announced. He got to Rona Ambrose as Environment Minister and said something like, 'that's like being in charge of getting the coffee around this crowd.'

My Doppleganger Met a Violent End

Courtesy of the reliably interesting Google Alerts I have set up to let me know when Google creates a new index entry in the top 50 results for the keyword Sherrett, I found out today that someone with the exact reverse of my name has been killed by violence in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

This evening at UVI there is a vigil in honor of the late Sherrett James - People are gathering at the Recreation center on the UVI Golf Course.  this evening at 7:30 PM and help raise awareness of violence. A vigil for non-violence is tonight at 7:30 PM at the Golf Course Recreation Center.

Whoa, I thought to myself. That's not something I encounter everyday. The last name Sherrett is rare enough that I know most of the people in the Google index. So I asked Google, what do you know about "Sherrett James"? And Google gave me some links I knew of about myself, and then this notice of a funeral in St. Thomas, a U.S. Virgin Island:

Banking and Insurance Closes for Funeral by Source staff

March 30, 2006 – The St. Thomas Office of the Division of Banking and Insurance will be closed from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., on Monday, April 3, to allow the staff to attend the funeral of Sherrett James, according to a press release from the Office of Lt. Gov. Vargrave A. Richards.

"Ms. James was an employee at the Division of Banking and Insurance and we all grieve her unfortunate passing," Lt. Governor Richards said. He apologizes for any inconvenience the closure may cause.

Wait just a second - Sherrett James is a she! She's Ms. James, unmarried, an employee at the St. Thomas Office of the Division of Banking and Insurance, and perhaps also a university student? And she's met a grisly end. I admit I felt a little shiver when I learned that Sherrett had died in violence. I've sent a note of inquiry to the newspaper that reported the death in the U.S. Virgin Islands. If I hear back, I'll update this post.

To round out the online alternate versions of myself, I learned from the Denver Library that an earlier version of me also died in a mining accident in 1940.

SHERRETT, JAMES
Death Date: 1940JAN30
Nationality:
Occupation:
Yrs Mine Exp:
Age at death:
Marital Status:
Surving children:
County: WEL
Company name: CLAYTON COAL CO.
Mine name: WASHINGTON
Cause of death/comments: FALL OF COAL & ROCK

BC Book and Magazine Week: Coming Soon!

The week that runs from Saturday, April 22, 2006 to Saturday, April 29, 2006 is BC Book and Magazine Week in these here parts. I'm working with the folks at the Association of Book Publishers of BC (ABPBC) and the BC Association of Magazine Publishers (BCAMP) to promote BC Book and Magazine Week. So here's the rundown of events and ways that you can get involved, attend an event and participate in a celebration of the cultures of BC.

The BC Book and Magazine Week website has a listing of the events that make up the BCBMW celebration. There is also the BC Book and Magazine Week blog to keep yourself current on events and to get the latest news and photos.

If you're into Upcoming.org, all the BC Book and Magazine Week events are listed and you can mark yourself in for attending, or just watch the event to decide later if you want to attend. You can also see who else is attending, and add your own events if you want. But if you're lazy like me and just want to check it all out, here it is.

BC Book and Magazine Week

• Saturday, April 22: BC Book Prizes Soirée (7 to 9 pm, Crush Lounge, free)


• Sunday, April 23: Book and Magazine Promenade (1 to 5 pm, Vancouver Public Library downtown central branch, free)


• Tuesday, April 25: Sell Your Story: An idea pitching forum (6 to 9 pm, Lamplighter Pub, $10 to pitch a book, $10 to pitch a magazine, $15 to pitch both a book and mag)


• Wednesday, April 26: Magazine Cabaret: Vancouver (7:30 to 11 pm, Alibi Room, $10 to get in)


• Thursday, April 27: Literary Tour of Vancouver (6 pm to late, Burcu's Angels, 2535 Main St., $3, two options will be presented, tour will depart Burcu's Angels at 6:15 - don't be late! And here's the full schedule of the tour.)


• Saturday, April 29: 22nd Annual BC Book Prizes (5:30 to 11 pm, Marriot Pinnacle Hotel, by invite only)

I'm going to try to attend as many of the events as I can. The Book and Magazine Promenade is a cool way to see the diversity of publishing that goes on in BC. The Sell Your Story forum is an unbeatable way for writers to get the ear of magazine and book editors. If I had anything to sell, you know that's where I'd be. The Magazine Cabaret is a blast, if only because the mag folks know how to cut loose. I've never been to the Literary Tour of Vancouver before, but I know it's popular because this year they've added a second tour to deal with overflow. And of course, the grande dame of the events, the BC Book Prizes gala presents the dishy publishing event of the year. I think gossip columnists even show up.

So if you're interested in the book and magazine industry, or just our local culture in general here in BC, step out from behind the screen and come out and participate in BC Book and Magazine Week. I hope to see you there. If you do see me, please tap me on the shoulder, tell me to be quiet, or just say, 'hi.'

From Idea to Air, a Workshop with Tod Maffin

Over at the witty and topical So Misguided, Monique has posted a great review of the Saturday we spent at the CBC in a workshop on the mechanics and approaches to storytelling on radio: From Idea to Air: Making Radio with Tod Maffin.

If you're at all interested in telling stories on radio, or through audio in podcasts or audio books, the workshop with Tod provided some invaluable lessons and guidance that would take you years to learn on your own. The workshop is also available as an e-book (From Idea to Air) if you're interested in teaching yourself on your own schedule. I recommend it. Now I have to get cracking on my own story ideas for radio.

Update on Rating the Popcorn of Vancouver Theatres

Due to recent developments on the Vancouver theatre scene, I have been forced to update the records on the Popcorns of Vancouver Theatres. Suffice to say, The Ridge has fallen and a new king has been added.

And, over at the NYTimes, Nora Ephron writes about the demise of the theatre industry and some causes of the rot in The Last Picture Show.

Vanity Fair Goes Green, Almost

The pending issue of Vanity Fair magazine is set to be the first 'Green Issue.' What does this mean?

Vanity Fair presents its first “Green Issue,” beginning an “increased commitment to reporting on the threat to our precious environment,” says editor Graydon Carter. The May cover features a quartet of eco–power players, capturing Hollywood glamour and activist passion: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Al Gore, Julia Roberts, and George Clooney, photographed by Annie Leibovitz. Articles inside address the pressing environmental issues of the day: Mark Hertsgaard reports on the reality of global warming; Michael Shnayerson writes on the Appalachian mountaintop-mining crisis; and a Green Guide offers up 50 simple things you can do in your daily life to help save the planet.

So it's glossy green. I don't mean to look a gift horse in the mouth, but this seems a little opportunistic. The contents of the magazine are all about environmental awareness and efforts going on to help the natural world. Great. But the magazine itself, the paper, printing and distribution, what about that?

If I'm not mistaken, VF is printed on the glossiest of glossy papers, which use the longest fibers, which come only from virgin timber forests. If they want to be conscious and respectful of nature, how about letting readers know the environmental cost of the magazine. How many trees were cut down? How much water was used? How much electricity?

C'mon VF, put your money where your mouth is. The stories in the magazine celebrate the prominent and the little people who make a difference to the environment. If we're to believe you're serious about the environment, don't just tell us, show us.

As Peter Warren always used to say back his CJOB Winnipeg talk radio days, "And that, is one man's opinion."

Oh, and thanks for the Teri Hatcher photoshot video: real and spectacular.

Gregory Rabassa's Memoir

Gregory Rabassa, the incredible translator of Garcia Marquez and 100 Years of Solitude, among other titles, has written a memoir entitled, If This Be Treason: Translation and its Dyscontents: A Memoir.

An excerpt is available on Words Without Borders: Me and My Circumstances. Go, read. Is very good.

Thanks to the delightful Gail of Open Brackets for the pointer.

Incidentally, Gail and I had an email exchange that I just came across. We were going on about life in Canada, how it can be a wonderful, dull, stupifying farce, and she cracked this one:

On a "serious" talk show here one night, all of the French guests started making fun of the Québécois guest's accent, aping him each time he spoke. He finally got up, saying "screw you, I don't have to take this" and walked off the set, leaving the others sitting there, speechless.

Then two more got up, saying, "neither do I" and walked off too, leaving the host and one last guest blushing and examining their knees. And there's no cutting to commercials here. It was most enjoyable.

My Experience Trying to Buy a Cell Phone

On Saturday, based on some fine input from some fine folks, I trundled up to our local shopping district to sign on to life with a cell phone. I had decided to buy one. I was ready.

First up, the Bell store. I found the phone I was looking for, the Motorola RAZR v3 on the display rack and tried to turn it on to see what the user interface was like, to see if I could figure out how to operate it. No dice. A sticker covered the screen with a pixel-like image. A wire tethered the device to the shelf so I couldn't hold it up to my ear. I guess I couldn't test drive the thing first.

A salesman approached. I told him I had never owned a cell phone before. He laughed. I might be the only person he's met without a cell phone, he said. (Or without syphllis, I thought to myself as his cloud of cologne descended.) He asked me what I would use the cell phone for. I explained that I had started a business and wanted a separate phone and number for the business. I anticipated making calls during the day. He showed me a package that offered unlimited inbound calls for $35/month. That sounded good to me. I thought I would receive a lot of calls, and if I had to make calls I could use my wired phone.

I asked him if the phone would be able to share information with my computer, running Mac OS X, so I didn't have to maintain two address books and calendars. He didn't know. He showed me a separate package offered by Motorola. I pointed out to him that it was for Windows XP. He told me he was new. We moved on to the details of the phone plan.

I could choose a few different plans from Bell, he showed me in the brochures. So what's the difference? I asked. He pointed at the columns and rows of the brochure, mentioned the different numbers his finger passed across. I see, I said, though I didn't see at all. So they're just different numbers of minutes? Yes, he said. So how do I choose what I want? He looked at me, as if I was an idiot. You choose how many minutes you want, he said. Oh, of course, I thought to myself, I must be an idiot.

By this time I was vividly remembering why I didn't have a cell phone.

We went on in this same vein to talk about adding voice mail (!) to my plan and adding caller display (!) and the free evenings (!) and weekends calling. Basically it amounted to a laundry list of how much more I could pay to use their service. I was passed another brochure with a page titled Call Management Services. The copy on the page starts, "Make your life a little simpler. Organize and manage your communications with the following services." I will say this, a copywriter somewhere in Bell has a very dark sense of the ironic.

Voice Mail: They wanted to charge me $5/month for voice mail that stored 5 messages at a time, of a maximum length of 1 minute each, for up to 10 days. Or, for $8/month I could have up to 25 messages, of maximum length of 5 minutes each, for up to 14 days. Now, though I had some respect for their pricing tactic of making the upgrade so sensible, I knew that this was simple robbery. Bell stores the voice files on a huge server farm somewhere and it costs them less than a fraction of 1 cent per message. The files are tiny, the software to manage them was already built, and likely just bought off the shelf. I was paying them a pure profit.

Call Display: They wanted to charge me $5 to know the number of the person calling me. Doesn't the phone do this automatically? I wondered. He didn't know. Could we test one? Make a call to it and see what happened? He didn't have a model of the phone for me to test. I thought to myself: it's easier to test drive and buy a car.

Detailed Billing: For another $3/month I could get a detailed bill of my monthly activity, with "a complete listing of all your calls as well as any airtime, long distance or roaming charges." So what does a bill look like without this service? I asked. There was a little hesitation on the salesman's part. I think he was about to tell me he didn't know, so I stopped him and told him that I'd find out online. I have not been able to find out online. I have found the right page, obtusely called Features & Fun Zone (do they mock me?), yet an example of what I will get eludes me.

Evenings & Weekends: Evenings now seems to mean 9 pm. Weekends seems to be fairly non-negotiable on meaning, it's Saturday and Sunday. Shouldn't they have called this the free time when we have no load on our network because all our customers are asleep and don't use their phone unless they're a bartender or hooker or fire fighter?

Now standing there in the Bell store, I was a little frustrated and impatient. I had been ready to buy! Why did it have to be so hard to give them my money? I asked my man about number portability. The blankest of blank stares shone back at me, like glazing on a donut. I explained number portability to him, how it let me take my phone number to another carrier instead of having it locked to one carrier. That's a good idea, he said, and that's as far as we went. Then he asked me if I might be interested in Bell's ExpressVu satellite TV service. I told him I would not.

I left the store and crossed the street to the Telus store. Two customers were in the store. After a minute a salesman came over to me, as I stood holding the phone I wanted to purchase, $50 less at the Telus store, and said someone would be with me in a minute. Excellent, I thought. Good job managing my expectations and juggling multiple customers at once. Things were looking up. 10 minutes later, after no further contact or expression of interest on his part, I left the store.

So I still don't have a cell phone and now I'm rethinking the whole thing. Do I need one? Can I get away without one? Should I just get another wired phone line to our apartment, which would cost less than the bundled-up phone I had been quoted by my man at Bell (around $65/month)?

I'm on the fence, ready to jump, but hating all the landing spots. I have a fantasy that I'd like a wi-fi phone-type device that connects by VOIP and acts in tandem with my laptop. From what I know that scenario is still a few years away. In the meantime, I may just stay here on the fence.

Living Without Shopping, the book

Judith Levine lived for a year in New York City buying only what she needed to survive. Then she wrote a book about it, Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping.

In an interview with Newsweek magazine, Levine lays out some of the details of living without our continental passtime:

NEWSWEEK: I can't believe you only bought the bare necessities for an entire year. What made you do it?

Judith Levine: It was a combination of personal worry and environmental and social concern.

NW: Do you generally consider yourself more environmentally aware than your average consumer?
JL: Yes, and yet I buy just as much crap as other people.

NW: What made you get serious about really taking this on?
JL: I was interested in investigating what role consuming has in my life. That was really my motivation, and I thought it'd be easy to go for a week or a month, even three months, so I thought, "Let's try to do a really extreme experiment and go for a whole year" ... Shopping is an emotional thing, and overconsumption is a kind of social, political problem. So how do these two things connect to each other?

NW: How did you decide on rules for what you could and couldn't buy?
JL: Those kept on changing and being discussed all year long, which was part of the lesson of the project. The line between need and desire is very fluid and very personal and also very cultural. It'd be quite different for me if I were a farmer in Bangladesh, or, you know, a television producer in Los Angeles.

Doing a little more reading about the book, I discovered that Levine and her partner are about average income, middle-class, urban Americans. She carried an $8,000 (!) balance on her credit card, which seems unbelievable to me until I consider it further and recognize that many people carry large balances on their credit cards. So for the most part, Levine's situation is fairly common for North Americans.

So I read the excerpt of Not Buying It and I don't think I'm going to be buying it. The book, that is. Not that I think Levine's year of living without shopping was a waste, or not worthwhile, or that she's not a very fine writer. No, none of these things will keep me from buying Not Buying It.

Rather, I don't think I can stand reading a whole book about the crappy trinkets that she's given up for a year. I can't stand reading about the shopping that's so purposefully being avoided. Witness:

The symptoms of my materialism start to show two weeks before D (for Deprivation) Day: panic attacks, anxiety, depression. That DVD player we've been thinking about? We decide to buy it quick. What about the magazine subscriptions? Better renew in advance so we don't run out. My niece is graduating college in May. Would it be cheating to look for a gift now? I worry, I grieve. My appetite for things gnaws relentlessly. I pass a Korean grocer with a bank of cut flowers outside. My heart is pulled toward the mini-sunflowers. They're so brilliant, so perfectly formed, so convenient for apartment use! I want them! Upstairs at Zabar's, buying Paul a new coffee grinder for Christmas (the one he's got chews the beans only slightly more efficiently than I would), I am distracted -- no, deranged -- by the hundred-thousand housewares on display. My own kitchen and everything in it suddenly appear hopelessly shabby. Our cloth napkins are soiled. Shouldn't I pick up a half dozen? Or that nasty old teakettle with rust spots inside. Here's a Calphalon on sale for only $49.99! And isn't this a cunning and useful gadget? It's a...a...gilhooly!

I just don't care. Give crap up. Make smart decisions. Don't get suckered and don't romanticize shopping. It's shopping! Beyond buying the things you need to live and work, don't buy things. Unless you're able to, unless you want the responsibility of owning them along with the thrill of purchasing them. It just about drives me nuts.

Maybe I'm just not the audience for this book.

As a sidenote: despite the excellent advice (thank you, all), still no cell phone for this boy. But that's another topic for another day.

Canadians' Environmental Attitudes Survey

TreeHugger reports that 9 of 10 Canadians Fear our Lifestyle is not Sustainable and that 8 of 10 would like to see "stricter laws and regulations to support a more sustainable economy that protects and manages the country’s resources for future generations."

The survey driving these stats was commissioned by a PR firm, James Hoggan and Associates, so the results should be taken with a grain of salt. The survey has been timed to coincide with GLOBE 2006, a conference on business and the environment that attracts big wigs and happened here in Vancouver last week. The full release of the survey can been read here on Corporate Social Responsibility Wire and is recommended reading to see more detail behind the headline.