[BRIEF NOTE] Over at Pearsall's Books

Pearsall has a post up about up-and-coming Sri Lankan-born British musician M.I.A.. He politely includes links to some interesting mp3 mixes. Also, jhubert might be interested in Rhine River's post about Cologne after its fall to the Allies in the Second World War.

[NON BLOG] To Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113

From The Globe and Mail:

The Toronto Transit Commission's union says its members have voted overwhelmingly to reject a contract offer and to endorse a possible strike, warning that buses, streetcars and the subway could soon grind to halt if the TTC brass doesn't stop "playing games."

[. . .]

Bob Kinnear, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113, which represents the TTC's 8,300 unionized employees, said yesterday that 99 per cent of union members who voted rejected a five-year offer that includes 2-per-cent annual wage hikes.

He accused the TTC of trying to make the union look bad and "scare the public" by presenting an initial offer it knew would fail to win approval.

[. . .]

In 1999, Torontonians had to walk, drive or cycle as TTC workers went on a two-day strike.

In 1991, a strike lasted for eight days.

Mr. Kinnear:

Kindly find a solution to your issues with the Toronto Transit Commission that does not involve me leaving my home at 5 o'clock in the morning to walk to my job and the beginning of my shift for eight o'clock, or my foregoing much-needed income. If you don't, I will be very, very unhappy with you folks.

Best,
Randy McDonald

[BRIEF NOTE] On Being a Woman and a Superhero

Via Daniel Drezner: Writing for Washington Monthly, Christine Larson's "Seven Mistakes Superheroines Make: Why the latest action-babe flicks flopped" takes note of the failure of the female superhero flick:

Four years ago, just as beefy, formerly bankable action stars like Steven Seagal, Sylvester Stallone, and Arnold Schwarzenegger were getting a little grayer, a little slower, and a whole lot less popular at the Cineplex, Hollywood rediscovered women. After years of casting actresses as perky love interests and weepy crime victims, movie studios finally realized that women can kick butt. Literally. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Charlie's Angels, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon all vaulted, jabbed, and roundhouse-kicked their way well past the $100-million benchmark of a cinema blockbuster. Male audiences, it turned out, didn't mind seeing the ladies on top, watching kick-boxing action babes such as Cameron Diaz and Angelina Jolie whirl their way through fight scenes (studio estimates show Charlie's Angels's audience was 45 percent male; Tomb Raider's was 55 percent); the fact that the heroines were also visually knockouts—and occasionally danced around in their underwear—didn't hurt. And women not only watched the films, they also cranked up the soundtracks, stormed cardio-kickboxing classes at the gym, and hoped that the next Star Wars film would star Queen Amidala wielding a wicked uppercut.

Then, as so often happens, Hollywood overreached. Studios didn't pause to figure out why audiences loved action heroines. Instead, they rolled out a formula that pandered to all of the wrong instincts: Trot out hot bodies in tight costumes, choreograph some fight scenes, and wait for the profits to roll in. The result has been a string of box-office bloopers, sequels that upped the titillation factor but lost audiences. Charlie's Angels 2 didn't rouse ticket sales by sending the girls to wrestle a bikini-clad villainess. Tomb Raider 2 added a sex scene and an intentional wardrobe malfunction (see-through silver scuba suit), yet grossed barely half what the original movie had made. The stars of last year's Catwoman and Elektra both donned Victoria's Secret-inspired costumes, but ticket sales went kersplat even before the Barbie-doll spin-offs hit the shelves. Catwoman earned barely $40 million; Elektra, which fell out of the top 10 in its third week, is unlikely even to hit that mark.

Characterization, Larson argues, has been lacking in the latest generation of female superhero films. They violated what she identifies as seven key rules.

1. Do fight demons. Don't fight only inner demons.
2. Do play well with others. Don't shun human society.
3. Do exhibit self-control. Don't exhibit mental disorders.
4. Do wear trendy clothes. Don't wear fetish clothes.
5. Do embrace girl power. Don't cling to man hatred.
6. Do help hapless men. Don't try to kill your boyfriend.
7. Do toss off witty remarks. Don't look perpetually sullen.

As Daniel Drezner notes himself, "one of Buffy's best seasons was when she had to try to kill her boyfriend." And she succeeded, no less. Even so, Larson has at least half a point.

[NON BLOG] On Seizing the Rind

There is a wonderful scene in Victor Milán's 1990 novel The Cybernetic Shogun, where the artificial intelligence Hidetada experiences taste, and smell, and touch for the first time. ( The unessential but interesting background to this story, if you want. )

Temporarily inhabiting a human body mindwiped for his convenience, HIDETADA experiments. He tastes fruit and is shocked by the intensity of its taste into spitting it out. He takes a Chinese vase, its dimensions recorded in his memory with micrometric precision, and feels its smooth polish, tastes its surface, hears it shatter after he throws it against the floor. The sorts of sensations that he feels aren't entirely unknown to him: HIDETADA has been able to determine with his various peripherals the chemical compositions of substances and to determine textures. What takes HIDETADA aback is the sensations' sheer immediacy.

I've been eating a lot of oranges lately. I've been able to buy them relatively cheaply at my neighbourhood grocery, they're easy to store, and they're readily transportable. Leaving early in the morning for work, I don't have to expend very much energy or time: I don't have to turn on a toaster, or wait for the milk to fill enough of the bowl of cereal, take care to clean up the crumbs afterwards. Besides, dying of scurvy in Toronto would be tragic, and sweetness--particularly oranges' faintly tart sweetness--is rare in my everyday diet. Minor pleasures all.

What I've found myself enjoying most of all about oranges, somewhat to my bemusement, is the act of tearing off the skin. There's an art to it. Press down with your thumb near one of the orange's poles--I prefer to press down at the pole where some small pieces of fruit adhere directly to the central axis, or at least where they do in the greatest profusion, and I tend to use my right thumb despite my left-handedness. As your thumb breaks through the skin, flatten the angle of approach enough to begin tearing the rind from the pieces of fruit. To ensure that the least possible amount of rind remains attached to the fruit, and to avoid unsightly and unhygenic scraping of the fruit with fingernail, periodically deepen the angle of attack, trying to approach the fruit whenever possible. Discard rind when done; pierce the remainder of the orange with index finger, tear open, eat each section one by one. If you try often enough, you can take off the rind in a single piece.

A minor pleasure, and an odd pleasure, but still a pleasure for all that.