Up in Ontario

CBC News' 2007 - 2010 Evolution

Want to have a say in how your public broadcaster covers the news over the next few years? The CBC is looking for public input on CBC News:

CBC News is launching a consultation about the future direction of CBC News. Over the coming weeks, CBC folks will be asking themselves six fundamental questions that will help the CBC News leadership develop its blueprint for the next three years.

...

It’s certainly clear that management realizes that blogs, podcasts, and sites like YouTube are increasingly becoming a part of Canadians’ news consumption. “We too must change in order to remain an important part of the lives of Canadians,” said the memo. “We need to be able to provide the news and information they need - when, where and how they want it.”

Go, have your say. Contribute to the news you want to see, read and hear. In many ways the news is reflective of government: you get what you deserve.

So what do I want to see?

A Canadian perspective, a filter, an aggregator and a place that showcases and points to other quality stories. I want a place I trust, where I can go and be sure that my attention will be respected and my time will be well spent. I want a place open to the public, transparent and independent. I want personalities who tell great stories, who aren't afraid to say what they think, who speak truth to power.

I think today's CBC News is a pretty damn good news source. I'd like to see them become more collaborative with their audience, acting as facilitators and distributors of storytelling, willing to share their reputation and resources with those that earn their trust.

Essentially I'd like to see CBC partner with their audience in storytelling.

James of Canada: I'm Second

To some eyes, I'm the second most popular James in Canada, out of 36,900,000. And the indented third too.

Yes! (pumperknickle)

I'm coming after you, Colin James.

The Cross-Canada Barbecue: August 5th

In the spirit of such spirited entries as Sink Peaches and Basil Pesto and Scoring the Good Stuff in Vancouver, and in continuing my ongoing education in cooking, I present a promotional notice for The World's Longest Barbecue.

Brought to you by Flavours of Canada The World's Longest Barbecue describes itself thusly:

Flavours of Canada is about celebrating the bounty of our Canadian agriculture and cuisine.

In July of 2003, Anita Stewart came up with the idea to start a nation-wide backyard / lakeside / main street Canadian beef barbecue in support of Canadian agriculture and specifically the beleaguered beef industry.

An invitation was issued and on Saturday, August 2, 2003 at 6 p.m. in whatever time zone they were in, thousands of Canadians participated, some from as far a field as Baffin Island, Japan, Australia and the U.K. The grassroots of Canada, wherever they were, played - they also spoke!

In 2004 and 2005 the event was repeated with resounding support of Canadians.

Again this year we have invited Canadians to join us to in support of our farmers and fishers, who need our help. And we believe that we can make a difference.

Basically, get in touch with where you food comes from. Buy local food and spend some time gathering and preparing it. Take care, it's one of the two things you consume that gets added to you, the other being stories.

I'll be joining in from our family cabin at Lake of the Woods. Sign up with Flavours of Canada and, on August 5th, support the farmers and fishers in your part of the country.

An Up in Ontario reader writes...

Now this is the kind of note every writer wants to receive from a reader.

Thank you for this wonderful book. I needed a really good read and saw your book at my local library and fell in love with it from the first pages.

Gill is a character who will stay with me for a long time. It is funny how we can come to view fictional characters as real. I find myself hoping that Wade has the best of both of his parents. I can see that he certainly has some of both. Christine bothered me by becoming more materialistic and I can see that Wade might be tempted, and of course was, to go in that direction.

The final scenes of the novel give me hope that the Gill influence will prevail. I grew up in the Toronto area and we always went to a modest cottage in Muskoka when I was a child. Many of the scenes in Up in Ontario reminded me of the best of those days.

Thank you again, Mary Hawkins, recently moved to Winnipeg.

Wayne Rooney's Autobiography

Wayne Rooney, the explosively tempered and talented striker for Manchester United and the English national team, has inked a deal to write his autobiography.

Yes, it's true. £5-million for the 5 parts of the story. The Guardian investigates with some delight:

It may be wildly presumptuous, with only phase one of his five-volume autobiography currently available for public consumption, but one suspects Wayne Rooney's literary genius may remain critically misunderstood during his own lifetime.

Anthony Bourdain podcast lands Raincoast on Marketwatch

Marketwatch, the financial news portal out of New York, profiled Raincoast books today in a story called Why Anthony Bourdain cooked up podcasts, with emphasis on their Anthony Bourdain podcast series and how innovative web marketing enables them to compete with multinational publishing giants.

Podcasts have enabled Vancouver, B.C.'s Raincoast to generate awareness for its authors in non-traditional channels, just like larger companies. "We can insert books into other conversations, which is kind of what happens at cocktail parties anyway," (Monique) Trottier said. "Someone will ask, 'Oh, what are you reading?, ' Well, I'm reading this.' 'Oh, have you heard about Anthony Bourdain's podcast?"

Using traditional media, "is not very exciting or measurable," she said. "You know how many people subscribe to the newspaper, but you don't know how many saw your ad. With a blog or a Web site, or a podcast, you know how many people were exposed to your message." Trottier said promotional dollars for online are coming from print budgets.

"I don't see the Raincoast podcasts as a replacement to mainstream media," she continued. "I see them as an augmentation to the existing book coverage on radio, TV, and print. More people are gravitating online after hearing a book recommendation from a friend, or listening to a radio interview with the author, or seeing a TV spot. I want to make sure they can find what they're looking for, including the extras like a podcast, a chapter excerpt, an interview with the author."

The news coverage is big news around here at Up in Ontario central because of its focus on the lovely and talented Monique - an immense superstar in these editorializing eyes. I believe she'd be glad to receive your congratulations at So Misguided and have you Digg the marketwatch story.

Congratulations also to Robert Ouimet of AtLarge Media, the party responsible for the excellent quality of the podcasts.

Update: Monique covers the coverage at the Raincoast blog.

The Up in Ontario Store: Opening Soon!

I want to create an Up in Ontario store. What will I sell? Well, not books.

I'll sell t-shirts, mugs, mouse pads, sweatshirts, underwear. Anything pretty much offered by white-label storefront operations like Zazzle and Cafepress that I'd buy or that someone tells me they'd buy.

Why am I doing this?

Partially out of interest. I want to see what will happen. I want to experiment with web-based stores to see how they work and if they're a viable business. I sometimes recommend them to clients through my consulting practice, Work Industies, and I ought to know what they should expect.

Partially also out of a promotional desire to extend the life of Up in Ontario, both time-wise - can you believe it was released almost 3 years ago! - and scope-wise - trying to see if my ideas about books being about storytelling and not about paper hold any water. I'm starting to think of publishers as commercializers of storytelling - for fiction publishers - and ideas - for non-fiction publishers. Part of this theory is that as commercializers they do themselves a disservice by limiting themselves to only one type of commercial product.

And lastly, I want an Up in Ontario t-shirt for myself. I'll wear it. I'm a keen t-shirt collector and would love to have a small slice of my novel on white 100% cotton on my back. I imagine myself standing and waiting in line at a restaurant and people reading the back, immersed in a story in a surprising place.

So here's the part I need help with. Do you have a part of the novel that you think will work well on a t-shirt? I always thought I'd do the opening page of the opening chapter ('First'), but I'm open to other suggestions. I also considered the scene where Wade catches the bass, and the short chapter entitled 'Kenora' but neither seemed as strong or an self-contained and self-explanatory.

What do you think?

(Oh, and if you haven't read the book, what are you waiting for? I finished writing it and shipped it to my publisher over 3 years ago! Some reliable people have said nice things about it, after reading it. You need stories, it lets you imagine and make sense of the world. Contact me and I'll hook you up with a copy.)

I injured my knee but can still swim

This past Thursday I injured my left knee doing an exercise called 'Karaoke' that involves shuffling sideways, twisting at the hips and alternating crossover steps in front and behind. I took my second step and rotated at the same time. My thigh turned, my foot was planted, I felt the bottom of my femur slide out of my knee joint and a sharp pain sprang from the inside of the knee. I dropped to the ground and couldn't straighten my leg, couldn't get up without help.

This is the same knee I've damaged before, the knee I've had surgery on twice, the first time diagnostic, the second to repair the medial collateral ligament and to take out part of my medial miniscus. The knee has been hurt before, but not for 10 years.

For the last 10 years I've protected my knee and it's worked well. I wear a composite brace to play hockey but that's the only remenant of the injury. I have worked hard to strengthen the muscles around the knee, supporting the joint, as much as possible. I thought I was through with knee injuries.

But on the unlucky 13th I learned I still have another knee injury to recover from. Now I'm on crutches and icing my knee 20 minutes of every 2 hours.

In a way this injury hurts a little more because I'd just changed my flights to Winnipeg so I could arrive a week earlier and meet up with my friends to do the Kenora multisport triathlon, which I had resigned myself to missing because I was to be participating in the SFU New Media Workshops.

So is anyone looking for a swimmer to round out their triathlon relay team?

Geist Presents: The Art of Cartoons and Comics

Stephen Osborne, the editor of Geist magazine, sent me an email the other day to let me know that the multi-talented Eve Corbel (a.k.a.: Mary Schendlinger) will be presenting a hands-on workshop on cartoons and comics next Saturday, July 22.

The Art of Cartoons & Comix: A Hands-On Workshop

Drawing cartoons and comix is easy and fun, and anyone can do it!

Come and find out how—at an informal, info-packed afternoon with Eve Corbel, comix creator and cartoon editor for Geist magazine. 

We’ll start drawing right away, and we’ll draw all afternoon. You’ll go home with cartoons and comix that you’ve made. 

Working with good old pencil and paper, you’ll learn these tips & techniques:

• The human face and figure, with expression and movement
• Animals, vegetables, toasters and other non-humans
• Talk, whisper, think and other balloons
• Plewds, squeams and other special effects
• Basics of composition, focus, viewpoint and story

Each participant will receive a Geist cartooning kit, which includes paper and drawing pencils. If you already have some favourite paper and drawing tools, bring them along.

Grownups of all drawing abilities are welcome. So are kids age 12 and up who accompany adults. Seats are limited, so sign up now!

DATE:
Saturday, July 22, 1:00 to 4:00 pm

PLACE:
Listel Hotel, 1300 Robson Street, Vancouver

FEE:
subscribers: $30
non-subscribers: $40 (includes a one-year subscription to Geist)
youngsters age 12–18: $15
(all fees include the Geist cartooning kit)

TO REGISTER: To sign up click on Workshops at the Geist store, or call 604-681-9161

As Osborne says: 'Beginners and dilettantes welcome.'

Suckling up to advertisers at Victoria's Times Columnist

Self-styled rabble rouser Sean Holman, who I saw yell at Northern Voice back in 2005, has run a speculative story about the dismissal of Victoria Times Columnists writer Vivian Smith.

To recap the story, Smith wrote a column raising questions about the value of visiting some well-established Victoria tourist destinations and suggested some alternate, free attractions. Tourism industry representatives sought and got a meeting with the Times Columnist publisher, Bob McKenzie, and a day later Smith was sacked. Now that's good gossip!

(Here's Holman's copy of the full column with the correction the Times Columnist ran on the front page (!) the next day.)

It's funny the journalists are always going on about journalists' ethics - their perpetual decline, their currency, their transgressions - when in fact it's the ethics of journalism organizations that need to be scrutinized and upheld to ensure good reporting. Individual reporters often get singled out from the herd and held to account but organizations have inbred self-censoring practices that influence what we see, read and hear far more than misguided individuals. The person with the by-line is rarely the spiker of the story. More often it's the editor or producer who teaches the reporter what is acceptable to cover and how it should be covered.

Watch the coverage of the BellGlobeMedia - CHUM merger in their respective outlets to see what I mean. No one speaks in anything but reverential terms for the Thomson family, who control BGM. Moses Znaimer always gets held up as a transitioning visionary.

No one looks at the real story here - that it's a consolidation move by two companies in uncertain times to get together and cut costs. They both play the same crappy imported TV and make most of their money off the media oligopoly. CHUM news reporters stand up and are poorly lit while CTV news reporters sit down amid a neutral pallette. CHUM plays cheap, sci-fi serieses shot in cheap locations, cheap-to-license D-list movies, cheap local programming and rehashed pop culture pap from its other channels. CTV plays the same with some Corner Gas, Canadian Idol a few government-funded movies of the week mixed in. I can't see the difference, can you see the difference?

Strategy decay is a facinating thing to witness. Watch the media industry flagellate right now and you'll see it. The merger of BGM and CHUM will yield some short term gains in profit due to cost cutting, then the revenues of the consolidated enterprise will continue to erode, just as advertising revenues across all media except the web are currently eroding.

Why? People don't watch as much TV, read as many newspapers, and listen to as much radio. The value of those vehicles to reach people is degraded. The effectiveness of those vehicles to influence opinion and behaviour is revealed as suspect at best. The various mainstream media outlets in Canada have homogenized themselves so well telling mindless, boring stories that they deserve their fate or reduced relevance.

Doesn't anyone remember the promises of media synergies?

The Big Here Quiz

The Big Here is 35 questions about the world around you, the natural world that we all rely on for our life but rarely think about. It's a great indicator of how you know your world in a personal, local, intimate, physical way. Here's a sample:

11) From what direction do storms generally come?

12) Where does your garbage go?

13) How many people live in your watershed?

14) Who uses the paper/plastic you recycle from your neighborhood?

15) Point to where the sun sets on the equinox. How about sunrise on the summer solstice?

Give the quiz a try and let me know how it goes. Tomorrow I'll post some follow up thoughts for each question. Thank you to Kevin Kelly for the insightful The Big Here list.

Books sucking wind in modern times

A friend sent me the following email last week.

Just stumbled on these are completely shocking stats:

Who is Reading Books (and who is not):

• One-third of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.
• 58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school.
• 42% of college graduates never read another book.
• 80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year.
• 70% of US adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
• 57% of new books are not read to completion. 

I visited the website he referenced on statistics of the publishing industry and discovered a great trove of miscellaneous stats of publishing, a pornographic smattering of numbers from diverse sources.

Among some of the folks I discuss the publishing industry with, it's no secret that the book business is, at best, in a holding pattern. Sales numbers are simply flat while costs continue to rise. For Canadian publishers who rely on exports, the numbers are more grim due to the rising dollar.

But why should this surprise anyone? It's hard to read a book. Compared to the other distractions clamouring for the fearsome, fickle consumer's overwrought attention, reading takes an effort of concentration and time. Any boob can plot themselves in front of a screen for the requisite time - half an hour for a TV show, 2 hours for a movie - or plug into headphones and let the technology do the work. Books require the variable effort of reading - sometimes hard, sometimes easy, but always purposeful.

I'm not saying books are superior or inferior or any other medium is king. I have great respect for strong storytellers in all media. In the parlance of our times, I'm just sayin': you get what you give. And people don't have a lot to give.

Simplr Spelng?

Advocates push for simpler spelling, reports Minnepolis-St. Paul's Star Tribune.

A friend sent the article to me with the comment, 'I find it hard to believe this isn't a joke.' Indeed.

When "say," "they" and "weigh" rhyme, but "bomb," "comb" and "tomb" don't, wuudn't it maek mor sens to spel wurdz the wae thae sound?

Those in favor of simplified spelling say children would learn faster and illiteracy rates would drop. Opponents say a new system would make spelling even more confusing.

Eether wae, the consept has yet to capcher th publix imajinaeshun.

I swear, you can't make this stuff up. It's not from The Onion.

This is why parody and satire are so hard in our contemporary culture, why Jon Stewart often only has to replay a clip from the news straight up on The Daily Show and stare at the camera incredulously. Our culture is a pastiche of our culture, the stories in the media parodies of real stories. Funny in that painful way.

Imagine Canada in 2020

Via CBC Radio 3's blog, I learn that a consortium of thinky groups - CBC, the Dominion Institute, Toronto Star and La Presse - are engaged in a project to think about the future of Canada, and specifically, what the country will look like in 2020: Canada in 2020.

Essays from regular thinky joes and janes are welcome too, if you didn't happen to be selected as one of the 20 thinkers to contribute. One will be awarded a $2020 prize.

If I had the time I think I'd take a shot at the contest, if for nothing else, then just to exercise the creative thinking muscles. As it is, I might just post ripostes on this blog.

Riposte #1: are the thinky organizers subscribers to the ideas of the wisdom of crowds? Well, kinda yes and kinda no. The 2020 wiki indicates an openness to participation, but I'd prefer to see the ability to contribute from other website, like this one, to the discussion, so I don't have to go to their site, register and post there where they own and can regulate the content.

Still, I'm pretty interested. I'll add the deadline for the essay contest - November 30, 2006 - to my calendar to keep my eye on.

Save 30% at CBC Shop Today

Technology and CBC gadabout Tod Maffin is up to some new tricks over at Inside the CBC, a blog he's created to publicly communicate to the CBC, from the CBC. It's sort of like the internal dialogue of the CBC.

The news today? Oh boy, a sale! Save 30 percent today at the CBC store.

Me? Have I put my monies where my blogs are? Sure thing. I ponied up for some DVDs I've had my eye on for awhile: The Newsroom: The Complete First Season, The Newsroom: The Complete Second Season and Escape From the Newsroom. Finkleman, ho!

Anthony Bourdain Podcast, Part 1

Over at the Raincoast blog part 1 of a 3-part Anthony Bourdain podcast launched yesterday.

On June 12, 2006, Anthony Bourdain spent a day in Vancouver doing media interviews and bookstore appearances to talk about his new book The Nasty Bits. He wore a lapel microphone during the entire day, allowing Raincoast Books and At Large Media to record Bourdain's casual conversation with fans, private moments in the car, and regular interview style questions.

It's Bourdain as you've never heard him before

Part One: Bourdain’s World

Anthony Bourdain’s most surprising questions. How to train for a career in the entertainment business. Listener mail: grossest Canadian Food; getting sick from food; how Anthony stays trim; how to succeed in just about anything you do; advice to would-be culinary school students. Runs 14:57.

Part 2 in this series will be released on July 11, 2006, Part 3 on July 18, 2006.

I listened and loved it. The production qualities, courtesy of Robert Ouimet of AtLarge Media really rock - the intro music, ambient sounds, voice quality. All of it is so much better than almost any podcast I subscribe to and adds immensely to the pleasure of listening. I'm looking forward to parts 2 and 3 when they land in my iTunes.

As a sidenote from the chef here at Up in Ontario central, the duck sometimes says I'm a bit of a Bourdain wannabe. I'd like to rebut this notion. I have no desire to be that skinny new yorker, I just really like the Les Halles cookbook. I'd also like to remind her that she, by proxy of eating, really likes the Les Halles cookbook, and that she should not, metaphorically, nibble on the hands that prepare the food.

And the photo? It's the end of strawberry season and the beginning of raspberry season here in south BC. Get out there and get them while you can! I am in the middle of implementing my freezing and storing strategy for year-long berry joy.

Update: Part 2 of the Anthony Bourdain podcast is now available and an excellent listen.

Update 2: Part 3 of the Anthony Bourdain podcast series.