The Best Books of 2012 (According to Me Only, Of Course!)

I love it when books take centre stage and there is a great scene in David O. Russell's wildly exhilarating and heart-felt new movie, Silver Linings Playbook, where a book makes a fantastic cameo appearance. In the film, Bradley Cooper plays, Pat, a man with bipolar disorder who is struggling to  see past the shards of his broken marriage. In one of many unhinged attempts to woo back his wife, a high school English teacher, Pat decides to connect with her by reading her entire syllabus. He starts with Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. The better part of a day and most of a night are spent sinking into the tomb and by day's end - 4 in the morning to be exact - Pat is done. How do we know he's done? He takes the book and flings it so violently across the room that it promptly smashes through window, shattering it and waking up the entire neighbourhood. I know I should have been slightly horrified but I could barely sustain my glee. Who hasn't wanted to do this, I thought to myself? And how many times did I almost do that very thing this year? Hello, 50 Shades of Grey. I'm looking at you.

This year's Black By Popular Demand annual book report - my list of the books that I read and thought were the best distractions of the year -  contains no "Flingers". There isn't a single book on this list that you would even contemplate throwing out a window. It should be noted that this year, I was down on  my book count and if I am to believe the list I update to your right, I only read 45 or so books in 2012. I was off my game for several reasons: writing my own stuff, watching Homeland and eating come to mind. Mostly, though, I seemed to have been drawn to some big-ass books this year. Four were over 700 pages. Odd. Why was I drawn to bricks, I wonder? Unknown. But I will tell you this? None of them hit anyone the head but me. And I mean that in a good way.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

This was my favourite read by far this year. I blogged about it, I pushed it on others, I forced my mother-in-law's book club to read it. Phenomenal. The plot is anything but simple: Nick Dunne's wife disappears on their fifth anniversary and though at first he seems like the ideal husband, things start to .....turn. Turns out she's no peach, either. The twists, the turns, the twisted! It doesn't get much better than this. Read it.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Some of the best reads nowadays can be found on the YA shelf. Why is that, you ask? Because kids aren't afraid to confront sadness the way adults do. In this one, a 16-year-old girl falls in love while coping with terminal cancer. Sounds like fun, huh? As gut wrenchingly sad as Stars can be, it finds it's joy in the unlikeliest places. Smart, clever, wise, it's a must read.

Wild by Cheryl Strayed

I am a bit of a freak when it comes to books that deal with nature but if you aren't drawn to the outdoors it won't matter. This book isn't just a memoir about one woman solo hike on the Pacific Crest Trail. It's about survival off the trail. Finding your strength after coming through a divorce, the death of your mother and heroine abuse. Oh, and there are also rattlesnakes, dehydration, bears and sex in tents. It is called Wild, after all. The book offers the best life lesson of all: putting one foot ahead of the other will always get you to where you want to be. Even when your toe nails are falling off.

Are You my Mother by Alison Bechdel

In this amazing follow-up to her first brilliant graphic novel, Fun Home, artist and writer Alison Bechdel thrillingly takes on her mother - voracious reader, music lover, passionate amateur actor - but also a woman, unhappily married to a closeted gay man, whose artistic aspirations simmered under the surface of Bechdel's childhood. Poignantly and hilariously, Bechdel embarks on a quest for answers concerning the mother-daughter gulf and it's a richly layered search that leads readers from psycho-therapy to Dr. Seuss to Bechdel’s own (serially monogamous) adult love life. And, finally, back to Mother and real-time truce that will move and astonish all adult children.

The Laura Tax

For a few weeks last month, I donned my Special Events hat and headed out into the big, bad working world for a few weeks to help the Toronto Argonauts organization deal with a little show they put on called, The Grey Cup. Luckily, my presence on their staff did not prevent people from showing up and we were able to put on a great show. Success!


 The job they asked me to do was a slightly daunting one as it meant interfacing with and organizing roughly 1000 volunteers per day over 10 long, difficult days. My job, in a nutshell, was telling them what to wear, where to show up and how to act once they were there. One would think that doing this at home with two children uniquely qualifies me for this task but, unlike my offspring, these people had willingly signed up for the job. It would be safe to assume, then, that tasking them to hand out giant foam fingers to eager fans or help direct drunk, giant-sized tourist from Edmonton towards the CN Tower would be not too taxing.

You thought wrong.

What I didn't prepare for was the complaining. The constant, constant, constant, complaining from what I've come to call the "un-silent minority", that small group within the larger, happy majority who, like their silent brethren, had also willingly given their time and efforts to the Grey Cup cause but who had made it their mission to grind me down like a nub with their constant kvetching. The Laura-tax, I believe it is now called.

To be fair, I know that every workplace has them - the people for whom the weather is always too warm or too cold, the boss is a jerk, the food is lousy and … you can see where I'm going with this. No matter how good things get they still only see the bad - and will go to huge lengths to point it out to everyone around them. Lucky for me, I got not only to see them in person every day but I also got to speak with them on the phone. And the phone is this small groups favourite method of communicating their demands - and they will use like a cudgel on a daily basis to let you know how things could be better for them and others. Somedays, it was like the Globe and Mail comments sections come to life.

The first few days, I took it like a champ. I started out strong: I listened to their complaints, took them in and tried to solve their problems on the spot with efficiency techniques I'd learned from years of dealing with screaming toddlers. I ducked and weaved through every problem - or so I thought - but like Rocky in round 6, I started to fade. The jacket you gave me is a size too big, can I get another? I don't like the area I signed up for can I go elsewhere? Do you have a few minutes to hear my improvements for Grey Cups in year's to come? And my favourite, how did you get this job because it seems like anybody could do it. (Yes. Someone did say this to me AND I didn't punch them in the face.) I was against the ropes, people, and I didn't think was I was gonna make it without someone getting a razor blade and cutting the blood out of my eyes so I could see past the punches. (Come on, Rock!!)

Then it came to me: my perfect strategy. And, no, it wasn't alcohol, my usual fallback position in times of trouble. It was very simple but also very effective and with the right guidance (MINE!), you, too, can get yourself to the other side of sanity with a chronic complainer.  Here's how it works:


First, listen to the complainer. Look into their eyes and try not to think about that great episode of Homeland that you watched last night. Then, when they are done with deep sympathy in your voice, say the following: “You know, that sounds terrible. I don’t know how you deal with all of these problems.” The answer will often be "Well..., it’s not that bad!” This approach works because it gives the complainer what he’s really after: Empathy. Not cheering up, not solutions, not egging-on. Just understanding of what is, for him, a difficult situation.

Next - And this is important! - don’t be sarcastic when you say it. Be sincere. You don’t have to agree that these are huge problems. Even if everything the complainer says sounds trivial to you, remember that it feels like a huge problem to him or her wouldn’t go on about it. What seems trivial to one person can be a huge problem for others. So you’re not saying “Yes, I agree that’s a huge problem”. And you’re certainly not saying “Oh, poor poor you” in a sarcastic voice, even though you want to. You really, really want to. You’re just acknowledging the fact that this is a huge problem for that person. Which undeniably it is, right? Right?!!

Finally, after work, find someone that makes you laugh and drink, and drink and drink with them. But not too MUCH! You need to be fresh for the next time. And the next. And the next. And the next.

ADRIENNE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Life. It's Flashing Before Your Very Eyes

Many years ago, when I was a university-aged student, I attended a show at the behest of a friend. It was at the beginning of my "art as exploration" stage and, like now, I was trying to open myself to the myriad of ways in which art, and artistry, could change people's perception of their world. It should be noted that the artist whose show we attended, Annie Sprinkle, had an eclectic aesthetic: she was a performance artist who used to be a porn star. Sprinkle's goal, we were told in the program we were given before the show, was to "use the vast frontiers of sexuality to explore, share and document my experiences and findings with explicit films, photography, writing and performance." The art world, she went on to tell us, was a refuge, where, surprisingly, she was made to feel quite welcome. "There was much more creative freedom, less censorship, and more legal protection." Who knew, I thought, to myself as I settled to watch the show.

(SPOILER ALERT! From this part forth, those of you who are squeamish or may want to skip forward to the next paragraph. It ain't pretty!)

Halfway through her performance, Miss Sprinkle inserted a speculum and invited the audience members to line up and each individually have a look with the aid of a flashlight. Although, I was enjoying the show, I decided to decline. (I was 19 and from a small town outside of Sudbury, for Christ's sake! Baby steps, right?) This was followed up with a beautiful ‘sacred sex magic, masturbation ritual’ that included, a board in which giant dildos were attached. Miss Sprinkle went on to show us the best ways to... AGH! You get it, right? I was shocked but, by the end of the show, felt that I had experienced something that was shocking, yes, but artfully executed. It also dawned on me that if we had attended this show 25 years previous, we probably would have quickly found ourselves arrested, found guilty of breaking about half-a-dozen obscenity laws and possibly have gone to jail. Success!

As we exited the theatre, I was enervated. I turned to my friend in order to gage how he had enjoyed the show. He was white as a sheet and looked incredibly disturbed. Are you all right, I asked him. He nodded in the affirmative and then told me, with a worried expression spilling over his face, that he was  afraid that one day - when he died - that the image of Annie Sprinkle's cervix was gonna pop in to his brain and that, no matter how hard he tried,  he would not be able to banish the image from his psyche. I assured him that such images did not, as far as I knew, come to us on our death beds. It took myself and several of our other art-loving friends the better part of an evening and several pitchers of cheap beer to get him to switch his thinking otherwise.

But the theory has stayed with me ever since. Is it possible that images that leave us disturbed or confused could pop up randomly to us on our death beds? And, if so, is there some way to counteract it? Was there a way in which we could hedge bets and find a way to seek out good images that might outweigh the bad? And so, this is what I have done. Over the years, I have made a mental list of images that I can conjure up when needed. The hope is that one of these might, when the time comes, help stave off, or at least outweigh, the image of a porn-star-turned-performance artist going down on a board of pleasure implements.  I wanna suggest you do the same because you never know, right?

Here are a few examples:

• The sparkle in my son's eye when he's telling me a funny story
• Sunset at my cottage
• My father's handwriting
• Seeing my friend, Dave Brown, try to water ski off the dock from a standing position and too much lead rope. 
• A raspberry
• My first bike
• A clean kitchen floor
• My husband rocking my kids to sleep
• Seeing the Rockies from an airplane
• The look my sister gets on her face when she's exasperated
• Water moving swiftly over a rock
• Poppies in bloom

Time to start your own......

Happy Thanksgiving, Mofo.

cat with dead mice, a photo by pyl213 on Flickr.

Oh! Good Morning, Cat.

Sheesh! I didn't see you there, five inches from my face. Nice to see you.

And what's this you're trying to place on my bed where my husband has only just left his peaceful slumber? A dead mouse? Lovely. And thank you for removing the head for me. I always find that to be such a nuisance to do on my own. Maybe I'll save it for later.

Oh! And please do not take my screams of terror as a sign that I'm not grateful! Maybe I've seen The Godfather one too many times but I am pleased that you thought to bring me something as interesting and useful as a dead mouse. Really! I know you enjoy eating them and leaving them all over our property for my bare feet and lawn mower to enjoy so I should be grateful. Plus, it's food, right? And a present, correct? I love both of those. Plus, I give you store-food, water, and affection, and this your way of returning the favour.

So, thanks.

Oh! Hello, again, cat. What is it that you find so interesting with our bathroom sink? How endearing it is to be heading towards this area with the hope of washing the sleep out of my eyes only to find you staring into the drain as if it contained the answers to the mysteries of the universe. You are a thoughtful one. To avoid disrupting your peaceful meditations, I will wash my face in kitchen sink instead. Carry on!

Oh, Hello again, Cat-Who-Lives-In-My-House-And-May-Soon-Sleep-With-the-Fishes! What is this crazy thing you are doing with your water bowl? Slapping, slapping, slapping the water and spreading it all over the floor for every- and anyone who passes by? There is no sea creature in that shallow bowl, you silly beast! No animal, vegetable or mineral in there that will clog your throat passage and keep you from swallowing yet another mouse's innards. Drink it up, you scamp! Oh, and don't you worry a moment about these cashmere socks! They will shrink in no time from the water you left everywhere.

And why are you scratching near this bowl where we keep your store-bought grub? Are you trying to bury it beneath the linoleum? There is no need! It will be here like it is every day. Same place. Same time. Remember yesterday? And the 1200 days before that? Not gonna change, Mofo. Not gonna change.

What is this? Why are lying peacefully in my lap sharing your warmth with me as I try to avoid watching a cooking competition show? Again. Is it that you see that I was contemplating your death after you spilled my wine onto the carpet? No, you purr in response. It's because I love you and I want give you my thanks in the only way I know how.

Sigh. All, right, God dammit! I give.

Happy Thanksgiving to you, too.

Trend Spotting. You're Welcome.

Of late, I have noticed a trend among menfolk in the western world. I have spotted it in city centres on a Friday night, on my Sunday morning hikes, in the line up at Canadian Tire and atop tractors in the corn fields near my house (Just so you know, the trend-spotting that I do for you never, ever stops. I am constantly on the look out for what's hot, what's not, what's up, what's down. It is an obligation that is a blessing for you and an exhausting curse for me. Just wanted you to know)

This trend knows no age barrier or demographic limitations. It is favoured by the tall and the short, the wealthy and the less financially favoured. The only common denominator to these diverse if misguided folk is that they are all, to one, "barber-challenged". I am speaking – through clenched teeth and tearful eyes – of the comb-forward.

For those you unfamiliar with the phenomenon, a comb-forward is when a man, self-conscious of his balding pate, combs the hair on the back of his head up, forward and over his flesh-flashing dome in the mistaken belief onlookers will say, "Wow, look how thick and lustrous that man's hair is! " as opposed to: "Oh look – that man has a comb-forward. Jesus H. Christ." Donald Trump is the best known and most extreme example of phenomenon and his technique - which could be a comb-over or a candy floss machine that emits hair instead of delicious hair-like candy strands -  has taken on near skyscraper proportions. In fact, according to architectural insiders, it was the inspiration for Ai Weiwei's Bird's Nest.

Gentlemen, I'm calling time on these ridiculous attempts to disguise disappearing hairlines and encroaching scalp. I am going to go out on a limb and say the following: balding does not make a man look bad. Attempts to cover up balding, however, do. In fact, I would say that they are insulting to the average person's intelligence. Do you think the world is fooled by your masterful hair disguise? Any woman worth her salt would rather spend sexy times with a man who knows he doesn't have a lot of hair than one who foolishly believes that she doesn't notice that his own hair is wrapped around his head like a turban. 

Let me be even more plain: I would rather be squired around town by Ed Harris look-alike than the Donald any day of the week.

So chaps, consider this page a cease and desist order, that you cease fretting about this whole balding thing – and you may as well, it does come to many of you in the end – and that you desist trying to disguise it. And yes, this is legally binding.

Thank you for letting me get this off of my chest. And t-shirt-wearers-who-also-wear-scraves? Consider yourselves on notice!  

True New Year

September is almost here and it’s transition time again. The leaves are changing, the kids are headed back to school and Matthew Perry is making yet another weak attempt to return to primetime (When will he learn?).  In our home, we refer to September as "True New Year". There is a sense of excitement that a new school year brings, when we shift from the schedule devil we know, to the devil we don’t know. In many ways, adapting to September's new schedule is like a signing up for your first step aerobics class (Remember when?) -- first week, just get your kids to school on time, figure out how to get them picked up. Step back and forth. Second week, dance starts. Back and forth and grapevine. Third week, back to school nights and jiu-jitsu stars starts. Back and forth and grapevine and add the arms. Fourth week, swimming begins. All that and step up and down. Fifth week, guitar begins, whatever board meeting you're supposed to go to once a month is scheduled, projects are starting to come due, and kids have the audacity to make inquiries about Halloween costumes. Back and forth and grapevine and add the arms and step up and step down and TWIRL. 

Straight on til December.

Because besides being transition season, September is also cheque-writing season. Cheques for swimming lessons, cheques for guitar lessons, cheques for agendas, cheques for Pizza Day, Sub Day, AK47 Day, dance lessons, protection from the Mob. It never ends. Plus, guess who drives them? Every September, I schedule the inevitable existential breakdown I have each year in which I question whether my university education prepared me for my job as a full-time chauffeur. Answer: not so much.

This year, though, rather than deal with it by swigging wine after hours and bitching to people who do the same, I intend on taking a page from financial guru Suze Orman: I will  show the kids how to write the cheques themselves. Nice, huh? You want the money, you write out the cheque. This will be a great way to help them to understand how much cash we spend on their extra-curriculars and it will give my hand a rest, as well as the portion of my conscience that tells me that it is important that kids figure out how much the "extras" really cost. Harsh , maybe, but a good way to help them understand that my cheque book has its limits.

Get Down Off the Letdown

Post-Olympic Letdown, a photo by jjdorsey57 on Flickr.

It was a rite of passage for my sister and I growing up in Northern Ontario to make a pilgrimage each summer to the Canadian National Exhibition. The CNE was held a special place in our hearts because it meant we got to go to the big city (translate: my Nana's ground floor apartment in a high-rise in Scarborough), see people we never saw in our small town (translate: grubby ner-do-well carnies who could build and operate complicated attractions whilst smoking AND asking if "I WANTED TO GO FASTER?") and watch my sister projectile vomit onto a metal ramp of The Enterprise after eating too many Tiny Tom donuts. Priceless.

As we slipped into our teenage years, the Ex's allure gave way to another attraction: the Ontario Place Forum, an amphitheater which lay just across the lakeshore. Throughout the summer, this venue would play host to scores of bands, from the most obscure rock outfit to the most popular jazz ensemble. It was six dollars admission to get in and, at night, the park came alive with teens lining up to hear their favorite rock and roll, disco, new wave, or hip hop music. By now, my parents had split up and my sister and I were spending our summers in the city and we would take the streetcar down from my mother's downtown apartment and catch any number of bands: Kool and the Gang one night, Al Green another, Triumph (Why not!), Parachute Club,Wynton Marsalis. The musical genre was irrelevant. We couldn’t wait for nightfall.

I hadn’t thought of the amphitheatre in a long time, until a few nights ago when I was stretched out on the sofa watching the closing ceremonies of the 2012 Olympics in London. I had appreciated the opening ceremonies and the challenges faced by the host country of presenting such a complex and rich history to a world audience: the opening pastoral scene with a little Shakespeare thrown in, which transformed quickly into the industrial revolution, a parade of the proletariat. I even kinda enjoyed the uncomfortable and overly long celebration of the National Health Service, with some sort of morphine induced Mary Poppins versus Voldemort montage. All interesting.

But this closing stuff was a different business all together.

I guess having dispensed with the entirety of British history in 30 minutes, the only other direction to take the closing was a celebration of pop music from the last thirty years. Really? There was no other way to go then reuniting the Spice Girls and slap them atop some taxis? Okay. And then I realized where I had seen it all before … at the Ontario Place Forum! Except this thing came with bubbly dancers performing overly choreographed moves, singing the same songs I had sung in my youth. All I needed was a glow necklace, a giant pretzel, and a Slurpee to complete the memory. I still enjoyed the evening. I sang along with songs. It was just like being back at the EX and amphitheatre all those years ago. Only they were theme park for kids. London is one of the cultural hubs of Western Civilization. Or was. And so I slapped on my Whatever goggles and went along for the ride.