PREMATURE
BURIAL (SLIGHT RETURN)
It’s
early Friday morning, and I’m sitting at my desk,
drinking tea (as the Russians do: tall glass, no milk),
smoking cigarettes and listening to Fischer-Dieskau sing
my beloved Hugo Wolf. Quietly, though, so as not to
disturb the kiddies. (Hark! The gentle night is on the
march.)
Yes,
I’ve broken my promise to post everyday. I break a lot
of promises. The Grace family motto is En Grace affie,
but, as many will testify, anyone who depends on me
wants his head examined.
My
excuse? I’ve spent the week doing real work for my
employer. Each two-week editorial cycle ends with a
48-hour marathon, interrupted by the occasional nap. I
chain-smoke and drink endless cups of tea while bashing
out 4,500 words or so. (More like 5,400 this time.)
After it’s done, I stagger about disoriented for
several hours and then sleep for the better part of a
day.
There
have been other diversions. Checking out my website
stats, for instance. (Why hello there, GMU-U6N1ZRCHUK9!
Back so soon? Is that you, Murphy? Or is it Mason? Give
Jefferson a pat on the head for me, if you would.)
I’ve
also been busy with Corporal Work of Mercy No. 7:
burying the dead. (Alles endet, was entstehet--ain't
that the truth.) The corpse is very much alive, however,
which makes things rather difficult, as you might
imagine. Performing my duties as executor of the
estate—sifting through the stuff, if you
will—I come across a surprise: an actual dead man. Oh
dear. One had completely forgotten.
But
my ambling shoes are back on, and the black box now
contains another entry. I interviewed Michael
Fumento this week and couldn’t use all
he told me, so look forward to his thoughts on AIDS in
Africa. I’m also going to take another shot at
Goldberg.
Finally,
it is my pleasant duty to welcome Dave
Stevens to the roster of Report
bloggers. Unlike Rick
Hiebert, I know Dave very well indeed. We
were comrades in production for two years, forming a
bond that can never perish--whatever Michelangelo says.
Semper fi. Paul
Bunner rescued me before I started
manifesting the usual symptoms of production
psychosis—such as turning up for work dressed in
combat fatigues and packing a pistol—but, five years
later, Dave remains, as imperturbable as ever. (Although
we never really know what’s going on underneath
the ever-present ball cap.) And as tolerant. He once sat
quietly as I allowed an entire Tori Amos concert to be
played over the radio and didn’t once attempt to bash
my skull in. Dave is a remarkable man. Not only a master
of Quark XPress and Photoshop, he is an expert in and a purveyor
of surf rock. He designed my banner. He
even taught me how to use a Mac. Dave is one of my
favourite people in the whole world.
Kevin
Michael Grace,
7.30 a.m., November 15, 2002 [Link]
ONE
STEP AT A TIME
The
permalinks are finally up. Thanks to A.C.
Douglas for getting me off my arse—and
for linking
to my Gould piece. Next up: an archive.
Colby
Cosh (or 27 Units, as he’s known around
here) has managed yet again to write
about "Tuesday Morning
Quarterback" without mentioning that Gregg
Easterbrook has anointed Walter
Payton the greatest
NFL running back ever. What are you
hiding, 27? I think we should be told.
Is
it just me, or is TMQ rather less satisfying of late?
Perhaps it has something to do with its switch from Slate
to ESPN’s Page 2, with its shockingly ugly Web design
and presbyopic-unfriendly font. Perhaps it’s that
TMQ’s nomenclature—"Potomac Drainage Basin
Indigenous Persons," "Mouflons,"
"Jersey/B," etc.—once seemed winsome but now
seems fey, incomprehensible, even intolerable. Or that
there is nothing intrinsically amusing about the
names of obscure colleges. Or that my instinctive
aversion to Star Trek and its fans has got the
better of me. Or that 8,000 words is too bloody long for
a column.
Or
perhaps it’s that I don’t have a TV anymore and
haven’t seen a single NFL game this season. (It died,
and I can’t afford a new one. I don’t miss
television, per se, all that much, but I can’t
watch DVDs anymore, and this is a source of genuine
sorrow.)
Finally
secured a copy (thanks, C-Zoid) of Jonah Goldberg’s
already infamous
"Bomb Canada" cover story in the November 25 Goldberg
Review. I'll be writing about this
for my magazine, and I'll probably publish a response in
this space as well. But here’s a first impression. In
writing about Canada, Goldberg starts from a profound
disadvantage: he’s American. Few Americans know
anything about us, and Goldberg is no exception:
"Preston
Manning, a founder of the conservative New Alliance
Party."
"This
guy [Manning] is sort of the standard-bearer for
free-market conservatives in Canada."
As
George Costanza would say, Wrong…wrong…wrong.
Lemme
tell ya, if John O’Sullivan were still in charge at
the National Review, we wouldn’t have had these
howlers.
Kevin
Michael Grace,
9.53 p.m., November 12, 2002
[Link]
…IT’S
GOT BELLS ON
"I
never think I have hit hard, unless it rebounds,"
said Dr. Johnson; and considering the mail it provoked,
my recent
piece on Glenn Gould was a palpable hit.
I was somewhat taken aback by the vehemence of the
response, as I had failed to understand that criticism
of the great man was akin to treason.
Treason?
Fred Stubbings writes, "I find it hard to believe
that a Canadian would take such a cheap shot at a fellow
Canadian that has earned such a wide reputation all over
the world for his genius." But Mr. Stubbings, I
don’t appraise artists based on their nationality. As
you admit, Gould has earned "such a wide reputation
all over the world." So he doesn’t need me
to lay offerings at his shrine; the Gould cult will
continue to flourish quite nicely without my
support. Besides, ever mindful of my Cancon
duty; I did promote Angela
Hewitt as an alternative. (As I would
have done regardless of the colour of her passport.)
Mr.
Stubbings accuses me of ignorance: "One would think
that a person with so little knowledge of the subject
could keep his opinions to himself." As it turns
out, I know rather a lot about Gould. I own 20 of his
CDs. Mostly J.S. Bach, of course, but also Bizet, the
Elizabethans, Grieg, Haydn, Sibelius, Richard Strauss
and Wagner. (No Mozart, Beethoven or Brahms—I’m not
a masochist.) I have read the books by Jonathan
Cott, Otto
Friedrich, Andrew
Kazdin, Peter
Ostwald and Geoffrey
Payzant, plus a coffee-table book with a
forward by Herbert von Karajan, the title of which
escapes me. I’ve read Gould’s own essays, heard his
radio plays and watched his CBC shows and his
documentary, Glenn Gould’s Toronto. It’s not
a question of ignorance.
Betty
Trueman takes the "Great wit is oft’ to madness
near allied" line on Gould. She writes:
I
don’t see Kevin Michael Grace or any other
Gould-basher advocating the boycott of the music of
Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms or Schumann because they were
anti-social, weird, possessing of a serious dark side or
mentally ill. Glenn Gould was autistic, for heaven’s
sake.
Autistic?
Ostwald, the psychiatrist and musician who was Gould’s
friend and medical consultant, has the best response to
that: "Glenn obviously did not suffer from this
disease. Had he been autistic, the remarkable success he
had in a public career would have been impossible."
Ostwald speculates that Gould might have suffered from Asperger
disease, but he does not release him from moral
considerations, for instance, "the precipitous
dropping of old friends when he thought they were no
longer of any use to him." Ms. Trueman also accuses
me of believing a preference for animals over people a
moral failing. Guilty as charged.
And
no, I don’t advocate the boycott of Beethoven, Mozart,
Brahms or Schumann or any other artist because of his
personal failings. But what evidence does Ms. Trueman
have to prove Mozart and Brahms bad men? I’d be
delighted to know either of them. Poor Schumann’s
later years were blighted by general
paresis. That is not a "mental
illness," however; it is an organic disorder. I’m
not going to argue about Beethoven. R. Emmett Tyrrell
admits he was a lout, an egomaniac and a
"cad"—"but then there is the matter of
art."
Ah,
art. Beethoven was not merely a virtuoso; he was a
creator. As Anthony Burgess pointed out, Rostropovich
will be dead one day, but Bach’s Cello Suites
will still be heard. Gould had the temerity to savage
Mahler as "a very nasty man...blithely indifferent
to the fragility of any ego other than his own." (Projection,
I believe it's called.) I responded that Gould "was
merely a performer whose achievement is dwarfed by that
of any number of giants, including Mahler." Let me
go further—I’d gladly trade Gould’s entire
recorded output for any one of Mahler’s Wunderhorn
songs. The cult of the performer is one of the banes of
the modern age.
Ms.
Trueman gets to the heart of the matter when she writes,
"If you had such a child who accomplished one-tenth
of what Gould managed to do, you’d be bursting with
pride." One-tenth? Oh please. Even if my son
managed to accomplish ten-tenths of what Gould
accomplished, I’d still have preferred him to have
been a grocery clerk instead—if he had managed to
accomplish Gould’s nastiness as well. I’d be
appalled if my son attempted to bully me out of my
favourite pastime.
This
is what bothers me most about the Gould cult: the notion
that he should be celebrated as a person and even
emulated.
Rick
Phillips writes
in the August Gramophone:
Recently
I met Natalie Webster, a young piano student at
Birmingham Conservatory in England. She’s bright, with
a bubbling, vibrant personality and short-cropped hair,
seemingly more punk-oriented. But don’t let first
impressions sway you. Natalie’s two pianist idols are
Sviatoslav Richter and Glenn Gould. Shortly after
discovering Gould a few years ago, she was so moved that
she made a pilgrimage to Toronto, "fuelled with an
eagerness to pay tribute to him somehow." On her
first and final days in Toronto, Natalie visited the
peaceful Gould gravesite, where she listened to the 1981
Goldberg Variations recording from beginning to
end on a Walkman. To Natalie, the appeal of Gould is the
fact that he was so much more than a pianist. She has
been completely won over by the man, not just the
musician. "He ensured he was bettering himself and
his art constantly, and his great humanist streak was a
facet to this part of his personality. He possessed a
type of genius that was invigorating—like an outburst
of rain after suffocating humidity."
I’d
like to have a talk with young Natalie. I’d like to
tell her that abusive men are best avoided. I’d like
to inform her that if she is looking for a
"humanist" pianist to pay tribute to, there
are many real ones out there. She could start with Wilhelm
Kempff.
In
an intermittently amusing letter, Lawrence T. McDonnell
declares:
Curley
said it best. [I think he refers to one of the Three
Stooges. But which Curley?] Your man knows about as much
about Gould as my dog does. Gould was the Dylan of
classical music a decade before Dylan. He made people
listen to Bach in ways they'd never thought of
before—and Beethoven, and Mozart, and on, and on. That
he enraged and confounded many with his interpretations,
that his 55 and 81 Goldbergs are so remarkably
different is further proof that he is in a completely
different category from Horowitz, Rubenstein [sic], et
al. He offered an entirely different notion of how
to read a musical text in performance—closer to John
Cage, in some respects, than Leonard Bernstein. Your
reviewer misses that entirely.
But
I don’t want a Bob Dylan of classical music. As for
John Cage, if you knew me better Larry you wouldn’t
throw me a straight line like that. If Glenn Gould was
the John Cage of Bach performance, he should have taken 4’33"
as his model—nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.
A
thoughtful letter comes from Philip J. Cortens, who
writes:
It
is rather when we come to the matter of [Gould’s]
"musical stature" if you will—even allowing
for differences of personal taste—that I am inclined
to take exception to the tenor of your remarks.
Mr.
Cortens argues that my
characterization
of Horowitz's
performance style as "rigorously
objective" is completely at odds with the
reality" (had you ever witnessed one of his
recitals? [No, but I’ve seen films]) of the sense of abandon
with which he approached the keyboard, indeed to the
point of recklessness (his willingness to countenance
wrong notes in the pursuit of his perfectly legitimate
objectives is notorious). If ever there was ever a
pianist who rather sought to conquer an audience with
straightforward visceral (not cerebral), breathtaking
energy it would be Horowitz (certainly not Gould, who
was however quite capable of rigorous objectivity).
Mr.
Cortens misunderstands me. Perhaps I wasn’t clear
enough. I meant that Horowitz was rigorously objective externally.
Jed Distler in the Gramophone
explains it better than I could:
Centred
and concentrated…at the keyboard, he plotted every
move with the utmost physical economy, avoiding the kind
of gesticulations and grimaces many pianists deem
necessary in the name of expression.
Mr.
Cortens reports:
The
many Gould CDs (wilful or otherwise) I have had occasion
to hear bear no evidence of a "squeaking
chair," and whether or not the voice is
"groaning" is certainly a matter of opinion;
to the extent it is even audible, which is rather
seldom, I find it neither distracting nor distasteful.
Moreover, I much prefer the clarity of Gould's
"cardboard box" to the acoustically cavernous
sound of many modern recordings (pardon me, that would
be the sound achieved in an empty concert hall, or
‘cavern’ if you will).
Each
to his own, I suppose. Listening to Gould play Haydn the
other day, I got that familiar sensation I was sharing a
room with Jacob Marley’s ghost. What a relief it was
to turn to Mikhail
Pletnev: no malign spirits--and no
clattering staccatos deliberately accentuated at the
recording console.
Mr.
Cortens concludes:
What
sets Gould apart from other performers—his genius if
you will—is his seemingly unique ability not merely to
interpret Bach (et al.) but to bring him to life,
to the point that a Gould performance becomes quite
literally a joint-creation of Gould and the composer in
question.
Sorry,
but I don’t hold with the "joint-creation"
ideal. The performer should be content to be the
creator’s handmaiden. Anything else is hubris.
I
don’t deny that Gould had stupendous gifts. And I
certainly don’t mean to imply that because I don’t
admire him he can’t be admired. (Musically!) The late Samuel
Lipman, my favourite modern critic,
admired Gould inordinately.
Three
years ago, after the Gould cult was decried by Tamara
Bernstein in the National Post, I had the good
fortune to interview Robert
Silverman. Professor Silverman, who
teaches at the University of British Columbia, is, of
course, a pianist of considerable renown himself. He
told me, "Gould was one hell of a great pianist,
but there was something wrong with the man." Prof.
Silverman was greatly hurt by what he called Gould’s
"perversions"—"the way he ruined
Brahms, the way he ruined Mozart, the way he ruined
Beethoven."
"The
apologists are saying how post-modern, how au courant,
how Derrida-ish," Prof. Silverman explained.
"You record a piece not to convey the sense of the
music but your take of it: deliberately sabotaging it.
But maybe I’m not as smart as these academics who are
drawn to it." Too modest by half, I’d say. Robert
Silverman is more than smart enough; it is the
post-modernists who are stupid.
Or
maybe we are all flailing for the wrong end of the
stick. Prof. Silverman said something that has haunted
me ever since: "I view so much of what Gould did as
having fun at our expense: a put-on."
I’ve
always thought Gould was a fine comedian. Unlike most of
his cultists, I do not cringe at Karlheinz
Klopweisser and his Ein
Panzersymphonie; I laugh out loud. Perhaps this is
the best explanation of the Gould enigma. Perhaps all of
it—the clothes, the moans, the conducting, the chair,
the Chickering, the funereal tempos, the maniacal
tempos, the ecstatic grimace, the garret pose, the
humanist pose—perhaps all of it was simply a joke. If
this is true, then Andy Kauffman had better look to his
laurels.
Kevin
Michael Grace,
11.33 p.m., November 11, 2002 [Link]
THEN
THERE WERE FIVE
Yet
another Report colleague has started a blog. He
is called Rick
Hiebert. I have worked with him for
years. For a couple of them, I was even his boss. Yet I
know little about him except that he is a nice man.
Perhaps his blog will fill in the blanks, if only inter
alia. Anyway, you should check it out. Did I mention
that Rick is a nice man?
Kevin
Michael Grace,
2.36 p.m., November 11, 2002 [Link]
ANOTHER
WACK HACK
Ben
Stein once said that rap music was "the AIDS of
culture." He sure changed his tune. So have we all.
(Except for Pepsi, which remains ambivalent.)
New received wisdom: rap is as American as Mom, apple
pie and the Glock
10mm. Why, Eminem is the new
Elvis. (My own take on Slim Shady can be
found here.)
Why, Michael Daly writes
in the November 10 New York Daily News that his
appeal is so transcendent he’s "let kids get
their groove back."
But
were the kiddies noticeably less groovin’ of late? And
if so, why? Let’s try and follow his argument. Daly
interviewed Eminem two years ago. Fast forward
"some months later." It was a "sunny
morning." Uh oh. Daly couldn’t, could he? He
wouldn’t dare, would he? The obiter dicta:
"On a sunny morning nine months later, you chanced
to hear an Eminem song over the radio in a taxi. You
heard one undeniably offensive lyric and remembered that
same voice saying ‘excuse me.’ Minutes afterward,
you got word that a plane had hit the World Trade
Center. You arrived downtown to see one and then the
other tower fall."
Now
what does this have to do with Eminem exactly? Fast
forward again: 14 months this time. "On Friday
night, more than a year later, you stood on that same
spot on the West Side Highway and said a prayer for all
those who perished there. You then turned west on Vesey
St. past a parking lot where you had heard cars
exploding in the eclipsing gray dust. You now saw a sign
that struck you to be in worse taste than any rap lyric.
‘WTC VIEWING PARK HERE.’" But why is this a
question of taste? People want to see the WTC site. They
bring their cars. They need a place to park. So what? I
was at Arlington National Cemetery earlier this year.
You know what? There’s parking there too. "Ample
paid parking."
Back
to Daly. So he goes to see 8
Mile. "As you ascended on one
escalator and then another and then another, you peered
out the plate glass windows to see more and more of the
brilliantly lit pit across the West Side Highway. You
considered that this perhaps was the only place on Earth
where visitors are awestruck by what is no longer there.
In Theater 10, you sat with people of all races, some
even older than you." Yeah, and I’ll bet there
were people of plenty different races at theatres on the
opening day of Jackass as well. So what?
After
8 Mile ends, Daly talks to some kiddies. He asks
14-year-old Daniel "if going to the movies made
life seem to be back to what it was. ‘It's never going
to be like it was before,’ Daniel said."
Seventeen-year-old Gina says Eminem is "hot!"
She "smiled and the others cheered as if life were
at this instant anyway as wonderful as it should be.
Their laughter seemed the very sweetest of sounds as you
headed back past that pit."
Chuck
it, Daly. Are your really trying to tell us that the
body of Eminem’s work is less important than the fact
he once honoured you with an "Excuse me"? Are
you really trying to tell us that we shouldn’t think
rap is in "bad taste" because mass murder is
in even "worse taste"? Are you really trying
to tell us that Eminem has given Americans back their
licence to live again, to laugh again, even to smile
again? Are you really trying to tell us that you, as a
New Yorker, occupy some kind of moral high ground
because 2,800 people were killed there on September 11,
2001? Chuck it, Daly. The waving of that bloody
shirt has become intolerable.
Fun
With Time Travel: Dateline 1866. Michael Daly reports
that Minstrel Shows have given America’s Youth reason
to smile again after the Recent Unpleasantness between
the States. Mr. Bones, oh Mr. Bones…
Kevin
Michael Grace,
1.58 a.m., November 11, 2002 [Link]
WHACKS
AT HACKS
Paul
Jackson in the November
10 Calgary Sun: "British Prime
Minister Harold Wilson once suggested even one week can
be a very long time in politics." He did? Really?
How about that?! Now there’s a lead for you.
Trust
Jackson to trot out the hoariest cliché in political
journalism and then mangle it. And then explain it:
"By that, [Wilson] meant events move so quickly in
politics that within just a week, the entire picture can
change dramatically." Gosh, thanks for that
"that." A week is a long time in
politics—whatever could "that" mean? Oh yes,
it means that things can change dramatically in a week.
To you non-specialists, a week means seven days, seven
complete revolutions of the earth on its axis.
When
I come to power journalists that repeat the Wilson quote
will be subject to summary dismissal.
Jackson
really is a marvel. He takes 700 words to explain that
Canada’s federal Conservatives are in a bad way, that
their long-term prospects aren’t good. I used to think
there were two kinds of columnists. Type One gave you
news. Type Two gave you analysis. Jackson reveals the
existence of Type Three: the columnist that gives you
the received wisdom—and adds nothing to it. The
type that tells you what you already know. Repeatedly.
And at length.
A
former colleague told me years ago that Jackson had
declared to him ("Laddie," he called him) that
no journalist worth his salt needed more than what, 15,
20 minutes to write a column. Jackson might consider
bumping this up to, oh, say, 30. On the other hand, he
has a column with the Calgary Sun, and I do not.
So he must be doing something right.
Over
at the Toronto Sun, Valerie Gibson informs
us (again, November 10) that "It’s
that time of year again! Party time!" Now,
"Some people may groan, especially regarding the
annual office Christmas party, but most enjoy a festive
function." Who would've thunk it? "Like
everyone else, I'm not quite as keen on giving them as
going to them. I guess that's selfish, but it's true
that hosts rarely enjoy their own parties as they're too
busy making it fun for their guests." Stop it, Val;
you’re killing me! There are only so many revelations
I can absorb in one sitting.
But
that’s not all! It turns out that parties are an
appropriate venue for flirting. Val thoughtfully
provides a list of do’s and don’ts. Do’s: make eye
contact, smile, listen intently, move closer, keep the
conversation light, laugh at your intended’s jokes
(within reason), touch his/her hand and then gauge the
reaction,
Boy,
I wish I’d known all this when I was in my 20s.
I
must part company with Val on the subject of
compliments, however. "Everyone likes compliments
if they're not blatantly insincere." No, as
Kingsley Amis pointed out, "Flattery works—so
long as it is sufficiently insincere and laid on with a
trowel." Truth is cheap; lies are expensive. The
lies are proof you’re willing to put yourself out to
be agreeable, and that’s half the battle right there.
Then
we get to the don’ts: "Don't drink too much when
flirting…Standing sloshed out of your mind in front of
someone and lurching into them every few minutes is not
attractive, sexy or interesting." What a
spoilsport! The drunken pass may not be much fun to its
object, but it is a rich source of amusement to those
looking on. I once chased a girl called Janie around a
filing cabinet at a university Christmas party. The
incident was remembered by many with great fondness for
years. Self-abasement often brings the greatest good to
the greatest number. It’s Utilitarianism, people!
"Don't
flirt with someone who is obviously very attached to
another guest. Flirting with someone in front of their
partner is not only rude but risky. Their partner won't
appreciate it and you may end up with wine poured on
your party outfit — or worse." Aw, come on, Val,
where’s your sense of adventure? Here endeth the
lesson. Sadly, Val has no advice on how to remove those
pesky wine stains. I’ve always sworn by the copious
application of soda water, myself.
Now
on to Val’s stablemate, Michael Coren. Michael rarely
disappoints, and his November
9 column finds him in fine form. A little
background. First, the Toronto Star accused
the Toronto police of the grave sin of racial profiling:
specifically, singling out black people for harsher
treatment. Second, a whole bunch of columnists noted
that there might be a reason for this—Toronto’s
blacks commit a disproportionate number of violent
crimes—as Chief Julian Fantino had noted
a decade earlier, almost ending his
career thereby. Third, a whole bunch of columnists noted
that black Torontonians were shooting
each other at a fearsome rate. Enter Mr.
Coren.
"So
much talk about race and crime, and so many arguments
that some communities are over-represented when it comes
to the breaking of the law. Loath as I am to agree, I
have no option. It's time to speak the truth, loudly and
without fear. Let us take a few examples. Sex offenders.
Overwhelmingly of one colour. I remember taking a trip
to the Oak Ridge Institute in rural Ontario where the
criminally insane are incarcerated. These men have raped
and murdered, their victims often being children. I saw
very little multiculturalism on display. Just one race
really. But people simply won't talk about it."
What’s
all this then? Where is Michael going? Could this be an
example of, dare I say it, Chestertonian
paradox? Yeah and as subtle as a flying mallet it is
too. Serial killers: white. Lunatics: white.
White-collar criminals: white, natch. Arms dealers:
white. Drug importers, "race haters," tobacco
merchants (merchants of death, doncha know),
"international sanctions busters who defy
democratically elected governments" (huh?!): white,
white, ever-so-lily white.
Not
so fast, Michael. Last time I checked, most big-time
drug importers on the West Coast were Chinese. And as
Samuel Francis reports,
"That most serial killers are white has almost
become a cliché. Nevertheless, a good many serial
rapists are black, and the New York
Times reports
(October 28) that studies show that some 13% to 22% of
American serial killers are black also." (For the
truth about black-white crime rates in America, read
Jared Taylor’s Paved
With Good Intentions or go here.)
Furthermore,
"Studies going back to the 1960s show that
African-Americans are significantly more likely to be
diagnosed with schizophrenia than whites."
And
what about the modern
slave trade, Michael? Arabs are
Caucasian, but that’s not really what you mean
when you talk about "white," is it? And
let’s not even mention the racial
composition of Canada’s prisons. But
never mind all that. The key word here is
disproportionate. If Canada is 80% white (a
back-of-the-envelope calculation), then it stands to
reason that most murderers, madmen, sex offenders,
big-time drug importers, white-collar perps,
"international sanctions
busters who defy democratically elected
governments" (huh?!), etc., etc., should be white
too. Right, Michael? What a ninny. And to think I once
compared him to Auberon Waugh.
Kevin
Michael Grace, 11.52 p.m., November 10,
2002 [Link]
EVERYTHING
ALL RIGHT THEN?
Messages
of concern have arrived concerning two recent posts.
They were either exceedingly elaborate leg-pulls or
evidence of acute nervous collapse. You decide. In the
event, they have been removed from this page and and
placed in a black box, tolerably secure from prying
eyes.
To
make it up to you, gentle readers, two new posts will
appear directly. The first comprises some comments on
columnists Paul Jackson, Valerie Gibson, Michael Coren
and Michael Daly. The second is yet another
consideration of Glenn Gould.
Normal
programming will now be resumed.
Kevin
Michael Grace, 6.15 p.m., November 10,
2002 [Link]
MICHEL
PLUS
Take
a dekko at my review
of the English translations of Michel
Houellebecq’s novels, now posted on The
Report website. I went a bit spare, as is my wont,
but I’m rather pleased with it nonetheless.
Now
for the added value. I omitted a line from the review,
apropos of Houellebecq’s penchant pornographique,
after deciding I was already sailing too close to the
wind. It was a 20-year-old remark (quoted from memory)
by the novelist A.N.
Wilson: "I think it’s possible to
write honestly about sexual matters without bringing
pubic hair into it."
Kevin
Michael Grace, 12.15 p.m., November 8,
2002 [Link]
THE
GREATEST LIVING ENGLISHMAN
Discovered
to my horror I had forgotten to link to Peter
Simple. This shocking oversight has been
rectified and gives me the opportunity to say a few
words about my favourite journalist. O felix culpa!
Peter Simple is the nom de plume (the name comes
from the novel by Frederick
Marryat) of Michael
Wharton. He originated the Way of the
World column in the Daily Telegraph in 1957
(since his retirement it has been occupied by
Christopher Booker, the immortal Auberon Waugh and, most
recently, Craig Brown) and now contributes an End Column
every Friday (if we're lucky). Wharton is something of
an immortal himself (he is in his 89th year) and
certainly the greatest living Englishman. I could
mention that he is the originator of the phrases "Rentacrowd"
(now "Rentamob"), "race relations
industry" and "We are all guilty!" Or his
tireless promotion of "the racial prejudometer,
obtainable from your local anti-racist stockist or from
the makers, Ethnicaids."*
Even
more than delightful than all that, however, is
Simple’s creation of the Stretchford Conurbation and
the fantastic creations that dwell within: Dr. E.W.T.
Spacely-Trellis, "the go-ahead bishop of Bevindon,"
Alderman Foodbotham, the "25-stone, crag-jawed,
iron watch-chained, grim-booted, perpetual chairman of
the city tramways and fine arts committee and five-times
Lord Mayor," Lt. Gen. Sir Frederick
("Tiger") Nidgett "of the Royal Army
Tailoring Corps, the hero of Port
Said…currently…honorary chief welfare adviser to the
Sierra Leonean Army," Mrs. Dutt-Pauker,
"Chatelaine of Marxmount," doyenne of the
"proud heritage of old English upper-class
Stalinism," great admirer of the late statesman
Enver Hoxha, a once-frequent guest at "Craig
Gramsci, her Scottish baronial home," documentarian
Neville Dreadberg, author of The Orange Monster,
a "[survey of] the daily lives of Ulster
Unionists…deal[ing] with cannibalism, necrophilia and
other typical practices," Julian Birdbath, literary
critic and discoverer of Doreen, the "lost"
Brontë…
Like
so many that toil in the satiric vineyards, I am in awe
of Peter Simple’s genius. Like the Beachcomber
(J.B.
Morton, a scandalously neglected figure),
he has constructed nothing less than an alternate
universe. In the future he will be celebrated as one of
England’s greatest writers.
*Peter
Simple explains,
"This simple electronic device, which slips easily
into pocket or handbag, can be used anywhere. All you
have to do is point it at anyone you suspect of racial
prejudice (including yourself), then read off the result
in prejudons, the internationally recognised scientific
unit of racial prejudice. The only snag I know of can
occur when the prejudometer, which is normally set to
register white prejudice, comes up against other kinds
of prejudice, for example, between black people and
Indians. It has been known to malfunction, even implode,
with unfortunate results for race relations in
general."
Kevin
Michael Grace, 2.20 p.m., November 7,
2002 [Link]
I
HOPE YOU’RE HAPPY NOW
Everyone
hated the green background. It’s gone. The ghost of
García Lorca laments, "Green, green, I want you
green" ("Somnambulistic Ballad.") I hope
you find the blue a soothing alternative to
"scalding white." I know I do. Cell padding
and spacing have been added, although this results in
the banner not being flush with the text boxes. One day
I shall learn how to fix this. Next up: permalinks.
One
hundred and sixty-one visitors on Day One: an excellent
start. Name checks from Jeremy
Lott, Kathy
Shaidle, Bene
Diction and fellow newbie Kevin
Steel. Lott calls me a "Canadian
nationalist," and I suppose I should distance
myself from this pejorative label, but I can’t be
bothered. I am a Canadian, and I am a
"nationalist," if you will. (I prefer
"patriot." Karl
Kraus defined a "nationalist"
as "a cock crowing on its own dung-heap," and
I can’t help but agree.) Besides, I had a pleasant
conversation with Mel
Hurtig (the grand old man of Canadian
nationalism) last week and found myself agreeing with
him about everything—except social programs, of
course.
A generous
blurb from Colby Cosh, who was
responsible for about 60% of my traffic. (Kathy Shaidle
sent me about 20%.) Many thanks to both. I also received
a carefully
considered endorsement from the lovely
and talented Kelly Jane Torrance. Kelly should post more
often. Unfortunately, she is assailed by
"doubts." She has also become something of a
boulevardier of late. E-mail
her a line of encouragement, if you
would.
Messages
of welcome from several readers, including Michael of
the 2Blowhards.
What an engaging fellow he is. The strangest (and most
distressing) comment was that my FAQ suggests a man
"short, tubby and balding." Let’s knock that
one on the head right now, shall we? I stand five feet,
11 inches tall: the exact average height of the North
American male. I weigh 145 pounds; a little overweight,
true: but I did lose 25 pounds this summer. (No-carb
diet, long, fast walks.) And while I do not have all my
hair, at my age, I can’t complain. So much for my
wounded amour-propre.
Perhaps
it was the FAQ reference to not driving a car that
induced such a false portrait. Consider this
indictment from my colleague Carla
Smithson: "Any adult who does not have a car is
either a rabid environmentalist, perhaps up to something
shady or very poor at budgeting (not that these are
exclusive of each other)." Typical anti-ambler
bigotry. People really do come over all funny when you
tell them you don’t drive. I remember a conversation
with an engineer at the radio station I worked at in San
Diego. "Where’s your car?" he demanded.
"I don’t have one," I replied. "You
mean it’s in the shop?" he persisted. "No, I
don’t own one," I explained. "I don’t even
have a licence." The engineer, previously friendly,
backed away almost imperceptibly. He looked as if I had
confessed to sexual congress with children. Things were
never again quite the same between us.
So
what’s my excuse? Rabid environmentalist? Shady? Bad
budgeter? I plead guilty to the last charge only. I
failed my driving exam at the age of 20 and never looked
back. People have speculated over the years that I
suffer from some disqualifying condition or harbour some
secret shame. Nope. Just never felt the need. And yet my
father was a car dealer…twice the
highest-selling Chrysler salesman in Canada. Make of
that what you will.
Kevin
Michael Grace,
2.30 a.m., November 6, 2002 [Link]
