Reader-submitted entry

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Man, I love you guys. You're sending me cartoons now! Thanks, Anonymous Jail Boss.

"Relax. You don't have to read to be well read"

Today’s episode of Little Miss Know-it-All: Bragging about your own lack of literary knowledge.

No, this is not about Ickler. This is about Russell Smith. The man is driving me nuts.

The Globe apparently has no standards for its Style section these days. This is today’s column, and the title of this post is the headline. My comments are in bold text.


I am so thrilled to have discovered Pierre Bayard's How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read: It gives an argument to support what one has intuitively felt all one's life and, more importantly, it gives one an excuse to judge, and judge quite harshly, all those ecstatically lauded, good-for-you Canadian books - on the Giller Prize short list, for instance - that you can't bear to even begin.

Note that even though Russell is trying to establish his Everyman credentials – literature is so tiring! – old habits die hard and he cannot resist the use of the word “one” as a pronoun. Naturally, this is not because he is a stodgy old Brit with a pipe and a wig; it is because he is a hip young fellow from Toronto. When you're as hip as Russell, it's OK to have entire paragraphs with only one sentence. Compound-complex sentences are hot.

This has been a real problem for me. I mean, I would love to come out and say, oh, come on, are all these sad historical novels really the best this country can offer? But I can't, because I haven't read them, so I technically cannot judge them. I feel like saying, "Well surely my complete absence of desire to read our most highly rewarded books must count as a mark against them." But that bespeaks arrogance and I would be criticized for that, so I don't.

Obviously, Russell follows his own rules about direct quotes. I mean, who needs quotation marks? Not Russell! This could have been saved with the use of italics, but what a tiring waste of energy that would be! A real problem, to be sure.

I’m very proud of Russell’s restraint here. I think I’ll try it out: I’d like to say that my boss is a swinger and so am I. But that would get me fired, so I won’t say that. Boy, this is fun!

So along comes the brilliant Bayard, professor of literature at the Sorbonne, with an armoury full of sleek and shining arguments for not reading and nevertheless forming coherent opinions on books. I know it sounds like a joke, but it's quite a serious book, with all kinds of geeky French-style new ideas such as the inner book, the screen book, the virtual library and so on. It's way more fun (I'm guessing) than another reflection on family, memory and loss in the light of the Holocaust. (I don't know, of course, because I don't read books like that, but now I can say that we are all talking about virtual books anyway and that my unread virtual book is just as valid as your read one.)

I TOTALLY GET IT. Russell is a man of the people! Stuff from France is geeky! He’s not one of those fashion snobs: he doesn’t take his cues from other countries’ trends. I feel like wrapping myself in a Canadian flag.

This brings up some of the responses I have had to my recent rantings about the value of fiction. I received several letters from readers who said, What are you talking about? I try to read fiction (say my angry readers) and I find it too dull. It's always crushingly depressing and slow and it's about women in the past. It feels relentlessly good for me, as if I should feel ennobled by feeling sorry for people to whom bad things have happened. Well, this is simply the sad result of the propaganda created by our media. If you read the bestseller lists and listen to the CBC, then you form a completely distorted view of what fiction is.

Again, Russell’s at his hottest when he can’t figure out how to use quotation marks. Who finds fiction dull? His readers or Russell himself? Who can tell? That’s true sexiness for you. I could just rip that ascot off him.

You think it's these morality tales of good victims. You aren't told that there are fun stories out there, many of which actually take place in the present and many of which contain amusing and politically incorrect characters. You will never hear either about all the fun genre books with huge followings, about all the science fiction and crime novels and thrillers that could teach many of our most revered writers a thing or two about pacing and intrigue. Those books are not rewarded in this country; they are not included in "Heather's Picks" and they never show up on major prize short lists.

Right. Nobody ever mentioned that there are OTHER books out there! This is called “breaking news”. Russell has discovered something that was previously unknown: Some books have huge followings even though Russell has never heard of them.

But they are out there. In fact, if you hang around a group of Canadian fiction writers, you will hear them excitedly discussing all kinds of exciting books - all the Lorrie Moores and Michael Chabons of the United States, all the Gautam Malkanis and Irvine Welshes of Britain ... all the books that don't make it to your mom's book club, the books you can be forgiven for not knowing about if you're a devotee of Canada Reads. (It will also give you the impression that these Canadian fiction writers don't have a whole lot of time for the work of their Canadian peers, and that impression may well be correct.)

Got that? When you hang around Canadian fiction writers, they’ll talk about books. What’s that? You don’t know any Canadian fiction writers? Clearly, you’re in the wrong social circle. You probably don't even live in Toronto!

But back to Bayard and non-reading. One of his most charming arguments is that to be really well informed one cannot attempt to read all the books. Because of the volume of books, the task is simply impossible. One is a much better educated person if one takes the attitude of a librarian - if one knows enough about each book to know where it fits, how it is to be categorized - that is, not just what it is about and to what genre it belongs but what opinions are generally held about it. Knowing a great deal about books in general, and having skimmed a writer's work before, could enable one, for example, to guess pretty accurately about what reading the new Giller-quality work would be like. It might therefore also permit one to say to oneself, "I do not enjoy that book," without having to go through the soul-improving exercise of actually reading it. I am all in favour of this.

What a fabulous suggestion! It’s not important to read a book as long as you know what OTHER people have said about the book. This is good news for reviewers. It’s also good news for pretentious people who use “one” as a pronoun.

There is a danger here, even from Bayard's point of view, and that is that the book I would be talking about would be simply the "screen book," a false idea of a book based on what I have heard from others. Although one's "inner book," the book that one has made for oneself by interpreting one's own life in light of the actual one, is probably the most lasting and important one for all of us. That's the one I trust, and I have strong inner books created from skimming the most popular Canadian authors.

Yes, I suppose that if you don’t read a book, there would be a danger that you wouldn’t know what it’s actually about. Who said there is no point in stating the obvious?

At any rate, Bayard has made life much easier for Canadians. He has given us the tools for a rebellion.

A rebellion, yes, but not the type Russell has in mind.

My dad called it years ago:

Mandolins are hot.

A visit from the Enges

"Hey, are you Megan from CBC?"

I am pretty sure I did a double-take the other day when someone asked me this. It has been three years since anyone recognised my voice, and it stopped happening regularly about five years ago. I almost said "no" to the guy.

Radio reporters usually don't get "recognised" in the same way TV reporters do. After graduation, about ten of us got summer jobs with CBC Radio, and I remember that one of my more obnoxious classmates bragged about being recognised all the time in PEI. I still think that if this was true (and I doubt it), he must have been wearing CBC T-shirts all the time and repeating his name constantly, hoping to catch the ear of innocent bystanders. He's now a producer for a national show, and he does a weekly feature that airs on the local station. Even if I'm exhausted, I always get out of bed right away when I hear his voice: I can't stand his smarmy accent.

There are people who need to know who reporters are to do their jobs -- I'm one of them. However, normal people in most parts of Canada do not recognise radio reporters. Most people wouldn't know Shelagh Rogers if she walked in the door. (Full disclosure: I turned into a screaming fangirl when she came to town. I almost cried. She was travelling with Jonathan Torrens, and I was one of the few people who wanted to meet her instead of him. Yes, I am a loser.)

Hmmm. Do you Americans know who Jonathan Torrens is? Do you get Trailer Park Boys in the States?

I will admit, though, that things are a bit different in the north. It's a small place with no media competition, and radio's a personal medium. People do start to feel like they know you. I worked for the station Up There for two years, and people called me "CBC". Yes, this is weird.

Get out of my way. I'm a celebrity now. You're blocking my access to my adoring fans.

How can I ever change things that I feel?

Today's episode of Little Miss Know-it-All: Media bias.

I joined an Internet discussion with other members of my family the other day. The original topic was American politics, but (of course) it quickly morphed into a discussion of media bias.

There are days when I'm really glad that I live in Canada. We have our own political weirdos, of course, but we do not have nearly as many angry pundits or attacks on the media. I follow American media trends, and it seems that there's no way to win: every reporter who doesn't loudly proclaim a right-wing bias is continually accused of having a bias. They can't ALL be biased, and I don't see how they can be biased to the right AND to the left.

I first need to get one thing out of the way: I am about to discuss the non-editorial section of the newspaper. People who write editorials and columns are paid to have opinions. In fact, they're often hired because of their bias. A good newspaper will publish a range of opinions on the left and the right. The reader is expected to know this, but obviously this isn't as clear as it probably should be. In large papers like The Washington Post, there is a literal wall between the editorial and news sections of the paper. In other papers like Name Of Paper Withheld, reporters write editorials. (You tell me if this sounds like a good idea.) The goal is to keep bias out of the news: a noble goal, to be sure.

Nobody ever pretends that reporters don't have opinions. In fact, they ought to have opinions. Ideally, a beat reporter will know everything there is to know about a topic. He or she has met with experts and discussed every possible angle of the issue. He or she should know that whatever the problem is, it has nuances and cannot be summed up in a slogan or in a "The Issue: / We Say:" heap of garbage on the editorial page.

Hmmm. Perhaps MY biases are showing.

The point is that a reporter can't be expected to have no opinions. Much has been made of the fact that as a group, reporters' voting trends skew to the left. (Don't e-mail me to tell me about the conservative reporters you know. I am talking about trends here.) Conservatives scream that this is what happens when communists take control of the media. Liberals scream that this is what happens when people educate themselves about the issues.

I don't worry much about voting trends. Many reporters refuse to vote on principle, believing that they give up this right when they become journalists: it would require them to think about which candidate they want to win, and that could bias their coverage.

Believe it or not, media bias means much more to the media itself than to the average Joe on the street. An accusation of political bias that turned out to have merit would have significant consequences for the reporter and probably for the entire news organization. Reporters cannot afford to open themselves to accusations of political bias, especially if they work for a decent publisher or producer. They would never work again. (Ever hear of Mary Mapes?) If anything, they are expected to bend over backwards to keep political bias out of their coverage.

So I get annoyed when people toss around the word "bias" when they really mean that they didn't like a particular story. You cannot assume bias from a single story or interview. You need a pattern of bias in context before you can even start to suggest that a reporter is biased.

However, I do see a different type of bias that is having a negative effect on news coverage: the laziness bias.

I can already hear some of you scoffing. "YES! They're lazy, so they call their friends at the Obama campaign!" This isn't what I mean at all. I'm talking about all stories that aren't about politics, the sort of story where you aren't looking for bias.

Reporters are taught to write what they know. In general, this is a good idea. However, it means you will only see a small sliver of real life on the news. For example, they might need an expert to talk about women's issues. There are any number of people they could call, but they'll go for the tried-and-true interviewee every time. This person will say exactly the same thing she said the last time she was interviewed.

This is GREAT for the reporter, but does not offer any real benefit to the public. I already know what the tried-and-true expert is going to say, no matter what the issue is. It would be really nice to hear from someone else for a change.

This is where reporters are most biased: when they're rushed for time and need a quote from someone right away. They always know how the tried-and-true expert will fit into the story. They always know that she'll talk, no matter what the issue is. Who has the energy to look for someone new to interview when there's someone just BEGGING to talk about the same old thing over and over?

Now, this is not what most people mean when they say the media is biased. They usually mean that the reporter intends to show one side in a good light and the other side in a bad light.

As always, there are some subtleties here that make it hard for me to say that this isn't true. This is indeed sometimes the goal. For example, perhaps the reporter has dug up some documents that show that one political party has bilked the government out of millions of dollars, paid off political allies and tried to silence the opposition. It would be pretty hard to tell this story without making someone look bad. And no decent editor would allow such a story to see print without at least contacting both sides for comment. As I've tried to explain above, true political bias in the news is rare, at least partly because it would be so obvious that the editor would catch it.

I'm going to give you a handy guide to detecting bias in the media.

• First, throw out your ideas about bias in favour of a political party.
  
• Then pay more attention to the person who is actually quoted in the story. Is it the same person you've heard from over and over? If so, is the person saying anything new, or is it the same old thing?
  
• Does the person work for an organization that consistently presents an argument on the left or right of an issue? If so, is he or she presented as the "expert" or as one side of a complicated story?
  
• Are there statistics in the story? If so, where do they come from, and how did the statistician compile the numbers?
  
• Who is the "expert"? Is he or she legitimately respected as an expert by his or her peers?
  
• Who is the victim (also known as the angel)? Does he or she really look like a victim? Is his story realistic? When you think about what he's saying, does it sound plausible, given everything else you know?
• What are the real motives? Are people speaking in sound bites ("NO BLOOD FOR OIL!") or are they trying to tell the reporter that the issue is complicated ("This isn't about gay marriage. Gay marriage has become the flashpoint, but from our perspective, the true issue is the inerrancy of Scripture. Let me explain what that means.")?
  

Hmmm. You're right: this is too much work. It would be easier to just continue to say that the media are biased. Carry on.

A few moments in the life of Steve and Megan

We need to talk.

Reader-submitted complaint: No, seriously. This David Hasselhoff thing needs to be addressed. It seems like you LUV him.

Okay, guys. You are making me very sad.

I'm going to try to explain this again, but bear in mind that humour impairment afflicts many people. There's no shame in admitting that you have it.

I really do love David Hasselhoff.

I can see that you're already looking for the "Post A Comment" button, but please wait a moment. It is possible to love something for its tackiness without thinking that it is true art. I would have thought that anyone who watches Eurovision would understand this, but apparently not. It's OK. We can still be friends.

Please watch this Hasselhoff-free video:



You LOVE this, don't you? Admit it! YOU DO! Everything about it is PERFECT, from the costuming to the choreography to the special effects to the bouncy, happy way the guy sings lyrics like "As the filth from Rome who rape our country and who terrorized our people for so long". You're already thinking about posting it on your own blog.

Now, I am pretty sure that you do not love this clip because you think it is a cinematic masterpiece. You love it because it's so all-around campy that you can't feel otherwise.

Now, I want you to watch this Hasselhoff-free video:



Someone in my family actually bought this CD about ten years ago, and it also featured a track by Leonard Nimoy. I don't recall what he was singing, but I remember that we laughed until our sides hurt.

Bill Shatner's a lot like David Hasselhoff in that he's a colossal joke. Both of them are now in on the joke, but there was a time when they weren't, and videos from that time are just plain hilarious. Shatner now stars in a TV show: his entire role is to make fun of his public persona.

The point that I'm trying to make is that you can like something for being really awful. And so I leave you with this:

This one time...

Reader-submitted complaint: Hey! What's wrong with band camp?!

Nothing. Is someone overly sensitive today?

I've never been to band camp. It would wreck my ironic hipster image.

HAHAHAHAHA.

The truth is that I am far geekier than anyone who went to band camp. I have been to Bible camp more times than I can count for many different kinds of workshops, camps and conferences.

I went to Bible camp for about eight years. It's how I met a lot of the people I was friends with throughout my teen years. I even ended up going to university with one of them -- he is now a clergyman in a town near Bay Roberts.


Other than my parents, I think my overseas readers will be the only ones who will know who this is. Jonathan partnered up with my best friend for some time after Bible camp in 1994 (I can't bring myself to use the word "dated"), but that eventually didn't work out. In any case, the three of us went to Halifax to go to school together, and my friend discovered that yet ANOTHER boy from Bible camp was more to her liking.

If I'm giving the impression that Bible camp was all about hooking up, it sort of was. Parents: do not let your kids go to Bible camp. Nothing good can come of it.

My dad was almost always at Bible camp when I was there. I am what extremely annoying church people call a "PK", which is short for "preacher's kid". If you already knew what a PK is, please don't say so. It will completely destroy my mental image of my readers as ironic hipsters. I would really rather not know that you have covered your guitar case with Jesus Was Way Cool stickers, and I'm better off without knowing that you have a Real Men Love Jesus tattoo. Way to tacky up your own religion, guys.

If there were band camps when I was in high school, I wasn't aware of them. Perhaps a reader can enlighten the rest of us. Is it like Bible camp? Do you know it's geeky and yet wear it as a badge of honour?

For Mom

Comment feed

I added a comment feed over on the right. What do you think?

Some people like to see all of the recent comments in one place, but others think it clutters the sidebar. It does indeed make it a bit harder to access the blogroll, which gets a lot of use.

Good? Bad? Meh?

grrrr...I mean, uh, MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Sorry, did I say I was cool?

Reader-submitted complaint: Kenny Loggins? Seriously? I may have to come up with a better term than "tragic".

Well, yeah.

Did I mislead you into thinking that I'm cool? I also own a Donnie Osmond CD.

Steve, Megan, and one cup

There is a horrible, horrible video out there called "2 Girls, 1 Cup". Reaction videos are all over YouTube. This is ours.

Everything old is new again

Somehow, I have been tagged yet again for the "seven weird things" meme. I am not sure that this is fair. Aren't I weird enough in daily life? My blog's weird, isn't it? Show me another blog that's like this one. Do it right now, while I'm drumming my fingernails impatiently to demonstrate how valuable my time is. I'm very busy and important, you know.

Isn't there some sort of rule that the tagger is supposed to do the meme too? And who are you, Dr. Bad Ass? I suspect a scheme to boost your Google search ranking by getting me to link to your blog. I demand a cut of the profits!

Hmmm. Seven more weird things about myself. Hmmm.

1. I am picky about coffee cups. They need to be the right size: I would rather fill a small cup several times than drink lukewarm coffee from a cup that's too big. They also need to have a lip: otherwise, small drips of coffee trickle onto the table. It's just gross.

2. This morning, I almost called CBC to complain about their music selection. Every so often, they will do stories about vehicles. This is fine, but what's not fine is that they always, without fail, play this song after the interviews:

Now, I'm not saying this is a bad song. I actually like it. However, it is not as if this is the only song about cars that has ever been recorded. Heck, there's a BAND called The Cars, and they have a song called Drive! There are a LOT of choices here, CBC. Pick one.

3. Speaking of driving, I avoid driving if I can possibly help it. I walk everywhere I can. When I do have to take the car, I use as little gas as possible. This means no idling to warm up the car. In fact, I sometimes drive with the window down so the inside of the car will be -20 just like the outside. This keeps frost from forming on the inside of the windows, which would require me to turn the heater on yet again. It's a vicious cycle and I'm keeping myself out of it.

4. I love, love, love iTunes. If not for my iPod, I would probably be on some sort of probation at work for hurting someone. Steve got me a set of speakers for Christmas, but he says I can have them for work now, and I am really excited about it. My playlist makes me happy.

5. Speaking of the playlist, this is the latest addition:

The most-played item is Randy Travis's Forever and Ever, Amen. I am not a country fan in the way Steve's dad is, but I've liked Randy Travis since I was eight.

6. I have the speakers and the iPod because using my work computer to play CDs causes strife. Seriously. I tried to explain this to someone today and failed, so clearly I don't understand it all that well myself. As best I can determine, some people feel that people who have speakers on their computers are somehow special. (I need speakers to do some parts of my job.) Using the speakers to play music, therefore, is rubbing this special status in everyone else's face. This is entirely separate from any noise issues, which I would completely understand. It is also unrelated to streaming Internet radio, which can create a tremendous drain on the company's network.

7. The other night, I Facebook-poked a boy I knew from Bible camp, and I immediately thought better of it. Well, he's not just a Bible-camp boy, but I only looked him up because a few Bible-camp boys had looked ME up and friended me. And I say "boys", but they're all in their thirties now. (This is a very odd little world that could only exist on the Internet.) I went to a lot of Bible camps and conferences when I was a teenager, so this was probably inevitable. Now I'm thinking that I really should keep my pokes to myself.

That's seven things. Does anyone want to be tagged?

To anticipate your question: No, I have never been to band camp.

BREAKING NEWS

Hat tip: Stacey.

Happy birthday, Holly

Whacks on, uh...

Reader-submitted complaint: I don't know if we can be friends any more. The Hoff intimidates me.

Who, this guy?

I get this a lot, so you'll have to believe me when I say that I understand how you feel.

First, there's denial. You don't want to believe that anyone could be so sexy. You're afraid of your feelings, so you tell yourself that they're not real.

Next, there's anger. You lash out at me personally, blaming me for perpetuating an impossible standard. You know you'll never be as hot as David, and it upsets you.

Then you start bargaining. You tell yourself and others that it's possible to, for example, convince me to take him off my Facebook profile. It will never happen. You might as well hurry along to the next stage:

Depression sets in when you realise I'm not going to stop. You know you'll never be as hot as David, and it makes you sad. The key here is to stop eating onion dip straight from the container and get to the last stage:

Acceptance.

(Link possibly not safe for work.)

Tell me more, tell me more, like does he have a car?

Reader-submitted question: Does Rebecca Eckler post on your blog?

Like what the fuck to you care? I mean really it is like you are stalking her and shes a PERSON damitt!!! I am so completely applaled by what a loser you are! It sounds like you read her books adn that makes you a STALKER!!! You are all LOSERS!!1! I;m just saying.

Rebecca is in Cancun and like I siad before I don;t know her and we arent feriednds and she didn't do the blog swap and she doesnt' post on my blog. She is a WEORKING MOTheR and she neesds her rest!

And like woudl you all just cool it with asking about my ex-freind who works for a newspaper and is a bitchy blonde because I am TOTALLY not to going to tell you who it is because some people dont' deserve to be freinds with me. I mean if someone doesnt always want to hand out with me all teh time on my schedul that means they are a bitch and especial if they never ask about the baby. But i am already on the high road here and so I am not going to stop to her level and say her name even though I JSUT KNOW she would do it to me in a seocond!!! I am classy, get it.

Si O really wish you losers would all just stop asking me about her when you all KNOW she doesn't post here. I mean why WOULD she. I know who posts here dammit and none of them are super-hot or super-skinny like she is they are all ugly fatties whho could probably kill her just by sitting on her.

NaBloPoMo

It seems like everyone else is, but I am not participating in National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo), not really, anyway. Well, sort of. Okay, so I am. Sort of.

The idea here is to post every day during the month of November. No problem! Although some of my readers mock me for it (my readers are harsh), I decided over a year ago when I set up my blog that I would be posting every day. Since then I've averaged about two posts a day and have only missed a few days when I was living out of hotels. So I didn't really need an outside reminder to post every day. But there are prizes, and I'm always up for prizes.

I read a lot of blogs. A lot of blogs. Many of the people who are participating in NaBloPoMo decided to do one post for every letter of the alphabet, but I notice that, halfway through the month, they're starting to lose steam. ("O is for...um...optional blog writing.")

I've been asked quite a few times how I come up with ideas for the blog. I'm not really sure, but it seems like ideas are everywhere. There's a new David Hasselhoff photo that must be shared with the world, or Name of Paper Withheld has printed something that's so dumb it cries out to be slagged, or something really silly has happened to me.

I tell people that the more they write, the more they will be able to write. I know, this feels like an immense leap of faith when it seems like you have no ideas, but it's true. I don't think I'd be able to force myself to do a post for every letter of the alphabet, but if it helps you to write every day, go for it.

I am already thinking about taking myself off the NaBloPoMo list, though. I am pretty sure that's where the spam is coming from. Well, I'm positive about the Korean one: I have stalker data on him, including a map to his town. The spam is annoying and something I've never had to deal with before. Stupid spammers! I better get a prize after all of this.