Wafergate

Canada's latest and greatest political conflagration:

Stephen Harper, while attending the funeral of former Governor-General Romeo Leblanc, supposedly accepted the host from the priest, and tucked it into his pocket. The host is considered the body of Christ, and is therefore meant to be eaten immediately, not treated disrespectfully (see: Toronto Archdiocese's director of communications Neil MacCarthy: "We never throw Jesus out."), so I can understand why this would be a big deal - if it had actually happened.

Here is the sum total of the physical evidence we have that Stephen Harper doesn't know how to behave at a Catholic funeral:
a) After a moment of uncertainty, he accepted the host from the priest and held it for approximately two seconds.
b) The camera stopped filming.

So this comes down to eyewitness accounts: there are a handful of people who say Harper did put the host in his pocket, and a handful who say he did not; that he it ate like he was supposed to. Somehow, out of this, we've managed to create an enormous furore, with some members of the Catholic community calling Harper's behaviour "scandalous".

Really? This is what we're turning into a political scandal? A religious faux pas whose occurrence we cannot even verify? This may be a good example of why many people find Canadian politics boring and petty.

I F*@%^ing Hate the Theatre

I am a university student. I love reading. I subscribe to the Globe and Mail. I like to consider myself well-educated...but I would much, much rather see a movie than go to the theatre.

Yesterday, as part of the Fringe Festival (and I really do endorse the idea of the Fringe), I saw a play. And it was terrible. The premise (a new take on the classic story of Little Red Riding Hood) seemed promising...until we found out that the "new take" was French structuralism. Cue endless pontification by the characters, incomprehensible metaphors from the very French and frankly psychopathic Monsieur Woolf, and, worst of all, endless references to the idiosyncrasies of obscure French structuralism theorists! (And, to the smug literary jerks students sitting behind me, laughing at every joke like it was Russell Peters doing an impression of his father, shut up. Everyone knows you didn't understand the play either.)

Let me clarify: Reification? Signifiers? Existentialist expressions of zero? NONE OF THAT SHIT BELONGS IN A COMEDY!

I'm not going to name the play because I don't want to single it out...let's face it, there's so much bad theatre out there, there is no reason to pretend the terrible-ness of this play in particular was extraordinary or unusual.

This brings me to my next point: movies.
As I've mentioned, I'm pretty sure I'm well-educated, at least compared to most others my age, and yet? Most theatre does not appeal to me. Theatre just tries too hard a lot of the time. It tries to tackle big topics and big crises, to be somehow more real than real life, to leave a lasting message with the audience, to show off how much smarter and more refined and more sophisticated it is than the crass popular media.

The problem with this mindset is that the popular media are so called because they are liked by many. Multi-million-dollar movies produced by big-name filmhouses are designed specifically to appeal to as many people as possible - that's how they make their money. When I watch a movie, I am fully aware that I am being manipulated by the sound track, the special effects, the imagery, and the dialogue, into having certain feelings...and I'm okay with that! I watch movies to be entertained: movies that I enjoy are successful in entertaining me and others because they were specifically engineered to be liked by a broad range of people.

Theatre, beyond obvious mass-appeal shows such as Phantom of the Opera or musicals, doesn't seem to share this goal. Rather than skilfully eliciting desired responses from the audience through the story, acting, and technical aspects, much of theatre seems to be designed to confuse, condescend, and betray. That's why I'd prefer to watch Made of Honor over Man of Mode.

A Livent Lecture Series?

Drabinsky and Gottlieb, who single-handedly proved that even doddering old guys can still rip you off, cooked the books at their failing Toronto theatre company not once, not twice, but every single quarter for six years to hide their decreasing revenue. Some people might call this creative accounting; the federal government prefers to call it fraud. They were arrested and charged accordingly, and now their lawyers have apparently decided that, instead of jail, it would be a good idea for Gottlieb and Drabinsky to give lectures to university students.

Of course, the Crown immediately dismissed it out of hand, for some crazy reason like "We don't let people who repeatedly manipulate their financial accounts get out of fraud charges by giving lectures on the 'discipline of the craft'".

But let's not be too hasty here:

In prison, the two gentlemen will likely face aggressive guards and inmates, restricted movement, lots of time confined to a cell, gangs, drugs and riots.

In the lecture hall, they'll be exposed to rampant texting, the slack faces of the stoned/hungover/drunk, an endless parade of latecomers who are neither apologetic nor quiet, temperamental slide projectors and sound systems, and a sea of open laptops indubitably all cruising through Facebook and Twitter, ready to deliver a different type of verdict on them in a few short lines of text:
"wtf who duz this guy think he is? im sooooooooo bored! y do i even come to this class?!?!!"

The lectures are starting to sound more and more like a serious punishment to me. Frankly, I think Gottlieb and Drabinsky are better off going to prison.