 Something light for the weekend — a contest. First person to send me an e-mail identifying the city or town where the above picture of yours truly was shot, wins an item of their choice from their Amazon wish list (if you don’t have a wish list, you can just tell me what book you want) up to $25 value. Limit is three guesses per person. |
June 21, 2003
WHERE IN THE WORLD WAS THIS TAKEN?
June 20, 2003
WHY IS THERE NO GOOD PORN?
 In an episode of Aaron Sorkin’s comedy Sports Night, Natalie, who is trying to prevent Jeremy from breaking up with her, suggests they get together and rent some porn. When he’s not persuaded, she promises “I’m talkin’ about really good porn”.
That’s charming, but hard to believe. If there’s a media monopoly anywhere, it’s in sex films, and they’re uniformly awful. This is because, to a nauseating degree, commercialism has trumped art in all of the Western media, to art’s great detriment. In film and music both the quality and quantity of new works coming from the major producers have declined inexorably and steadily for decades. This is a market-driven phenomenon: Shareholders of mega-media companies demand steady earnings growth and high ROI, which requires these companies to be risk-averse, and to use advertising, big names, and tried-and-true success formulas, and to issue less, and a less courageous, product. The void this creates is filled by independent producers, to whom the artistic community and the discriminating listener/viewer are totally indebted. A similar phenomenon seems to exist in the so-called ‘adult film’ industry, where a small group of companies dominate production, distribution, and adult film channel ownership. The difference is that the independent producers of this genre are invisible. Why is this? As viewers of Sundance and other independent film festivals can attest, it’s not lack of courage. or willingness to push the envelope. So where is the astounding, creative, disturbing erotic art? I believe there are three reasons it either doesn’t exist or we can’t find it. First, unlike other aspects of film, TV and literature, there are no great models to follow. Last Tango in Paris received mixed reviews, and its reputation has declined with age. Emmanuelle was fluffy and uneven and in places ridiculous. Red Shoe Diaries (both the film and the series) is possibly the best US model, despite its dubious pedigree. There are a few good European models, such as the work of David Hamilton (Bilitis) and the latter works of the esteemed Alain Robbe-Grillet (Glissements Progressifs du Plaisir). On the other hand, big-studio erotica (exemplified by Eyes Wide Shut ) suffers from the same flaws as the major studios’ other attempts at artistry: ponderous and distracting story lines, talent-less big name actors, and cute, excessive cinematography. Independent producers understand that in erotica as in some other genres it is important not to mean too much, not to weigh the film down with self-importance and pretentious of profundity. Porn should be fun, much in the same way that horror films are, evoking visceral response in clever, creative, and, yes, thoughtful ways. Erotica needs a Hitchcock to give it credibility and leadership. The second reason there’s no good porn discernible is that it lacks an incubating constituency, a home that will nurture and define and refine the genre. An obvious constituency would be women’s independent film, since women’s interests have been most egregiously neglected by the slapdash mainstream porn producers. Women however have many other battles to fight these days in film, where, as in other media, they have been outrageously ignored and underrated by mostly-male critics and under-used by mostly-male producers. Taking on erotica would give misogynists another vehicle with which to attack feminism, which women don’t need. On the other hand, the gay and lesbian community have been excellent producers of witty and brooding erotica. The makers of heterotica should study their techniques, but ideally keep it lighter — watching the current crop of porn is depressing enough as it is. The third reason is the pervasive influence of America’s puritan culture. This psychologically damaged culture glorifies violence and abhors sex. It makes the public viewing of vulgar and gratuitous violence trendy, macho and socially acceptable, and the viewing of erotica, regardless of quality, as shameful. This has a huge impact on the commercial opportunity for, and the success of, adult films. Blockbuster stores feature gore-splashed billboards in their front windows, but relegates even tame erotica to the back room behind the curtain. With that double standard, it’s not surprising that audiences are not clamouring (at least overtly) for more and better porn, and hence not surprising that producers are reluctant to fill the need. A future breakthrough will come, as it has in popular music, when women take the initiative to demand Natalie’s “really good porn”, and when independent women filmmakers, studying the European and gay-lesbian methods and approaches to the genre, respond. |
June 19, 2003
TEN THINGS THAT DON’T MAKE SENSE
 Many of my posts are about things that don’t make sense — notably those on political and economic matters like ‘free’ trade, globalization, the tax system, intellectual property laws, and my recent post about 12 aspects of business that desperately need innovating.
These ten things are more general. Some of them have bugged me for a long time. Maybe I just don’t understand them. If you do, please enlighten me:
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THE US VERSUS EVERYONE ELSE: POLAR POLL
A recent CBC poll of 11,000 people in 11 countries reveals a staggering difference in perception of the US, between Americans and just about everyone else. While the whole report is worth a read, here are a couple of teasers:While the rest of the world is mostly favourable in their impression of the US (55% to 37%), they are mostly unfavourable in their impression of its president (57% to 35%). Thanks to Dynamic Driveler Doug for the link. |
June 18, 2003
A HIGH-LEVEL SPEC FOR BUSINESS WEBLOGS AND SOCIAL SOFTWARE
 In a recent post, I described Social Networking Enablement as the natural evolution of Knowledge Management:
As the table above suggests, the key technical elements of Social Networking Enablement (SNE) are business weblogs (the repositories of personal knowledge) and social software (the tools that connect people and mine their knowledge). Following is a high-level specification for commercial development of such software. In organizations with structured work processes (manufacturers, banks etc.) these elements would supplement centralized, filtered knowledge repositories of best practices, policies and methodologies etc. In organizations with primarily unstructured work processes (consultants, engineers etc.) these elements could largely supplant centralized, filtered knowledge repositories and the tools that access them. Business Weblogs
Social Software Tool #1: Expertise Finder
Social Software Tool #2: Research Bibliography & Canvassing Tool
Social Software Tool #3: Knowledge Creation Assessment & Biography Tool
Social Software Tool #4: Knowledge Traffic Management Tool
Social Software Tool #5: Debrief Tool
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June 17, 2003
EXILE
 The silent sister veiled in white and blue Between the yews, behind the garden god, Whose flute is breathless, bent her head and signed but spoke no word But the fountain sprang up and the bird sang down Till the wind shake a thousand whispers from the yew And after this our exile
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Comments Off
AND THEN HE SAID…
 Every once in awhile I take stock of what I’ve written recently, and ask myself what I should write next. I’m often tempted to write shorter, snappier articles, which tend to be read by more people and give me much-needed practice in brevity and clever turn of phrase. The problem is that such short pieces also tend to be unsubstantial.
When I post the results of original research or surveys, my hit rates jump significantly. These are, alas, hard to do well. I’m a ‘thinker’ not a ‘linker’, though I have enormous admiration for those like Mark Woods , Caterina and Natasha who read immense volumes of news and commentary, report only the best and most important in their blogs, and say just the right amount to provide the context needed to allow each reader to determine whether or not to read the entire article in question. Reading a dozen such blogs per day almost eliminates, for me, the need to read newspapers. If my goal was strictly popularity of my blog, I’d write about business, the nuances of blogging, and informative and educational articles on politics and economics (they receive an average of 10 comments per post). I’d write less poetry, fewer short stories and memoirs, less on society and culture (my posts on depression , procrastination , regret and compromise ), and fewer persuasive articles and essays on politics and philosophy. Here’s what I’m thinking of writing about over the next couple of weeks. Dear patient reader, I would welcome your guidance, preferences, and additional ideas (but please e-mail me rather than commenting, to avoid biasing others’ responses).
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June 15, 2003
CLOSURE
 I spent the past two astonishing days at reunions for my elementary school (grade 6, class of ’63) and my high school (grade 12, class of ’69). These reunions were brilliantly and lovingly orchestrated by three of my fellow students from those days: Grant Mitchell, Nancy Gray, and the fine actor (and dear friend) Nick Rice. For most of us, this was the first time we had ever attended a reunion, and most of the 70 or so attendees had to fly in from wherever they now live to Winnipeg, where we went to school so many years ago.
In the tumultuous late ’60s we were an extraordinary group, academically successful, ambitious and confident we could and would change the world. We remain an extraordinary group, many with lowered expectations, some famous, most somewhat battle-scarred but almost all thriving, happy, remarkable. With few exceptions, we had not seen each other in thirty or forty years, so the atmosphere was electric with curiosity. As I spoke to those I knew, or thought I had known, it was clear that a considerable number of us were looking for more than just renewal of old friendships. We were looking for closure. In the Spring of 1969 I fell deliriously, profoundly in love with a tiny, intense young woman of quiet and staggering intelligence. Joanne was an accomplished pianist and flautist who planned to study music at the renowned Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. I wanted to study philosophy and political science and creative writing and an extensive and incongruous group of other subjects. But most of all I wanted to travel the world with Joanne, to transport us to some wondrous, distant place, wrapped in a mutually-woven cocoon of idealistic emotional and intellectual passion and protected from an outside world that I saw as nothing more than a coarse and rude intrusion into the perfection and purity that was we two. The brief time I spent with her that Spring was filled at once with ecstasy and exquisite terror. I was utterly in awe of her, her incredible talent and intellect, the way her eyes filled with fire and then tears as she expounded passionately, gracefully on subjects that I could barely grasp. Her mind was like a Bach fugue, operating on several levels simultaneously, artfully, weaving several ideas in tandem that she would finally resolve in a handful of words and then look right at you, right into your soul, showing that she understood, and questioning, pleading to see whether you understood as well. I wrote poetry and played music on the stereo for her, in homage to her — Satie’s Trois Gymnopédies and Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony and Second Piano Concerto — and lit scented candles. We talked for hours about philosophy and the environment and politics and economics and language and literature and music and ideas and emotions and how to save the world. Every day, every meeting with her was an impossible challenge, an exhausting, gut-wrenching performance, an attempt to keep up, an artless and inarticulate wooing of this magical, wonderful, incredible person who wholly and flawlessly personified my every ideal, my very purpose for living. Every evening alone was an agonizing re-enactment of that day’s performance, a humiliating admission of unworthiness, unworldliness, incoherence, and a shattered preparation for the futile attempt to do better the next day. I dared not try to make our love affair physical, where I was even less competent and self-confident than I was emotionally and intellectually. Besides, I felt no need to do so, and hence squandered the opportunity to deepen our incandescent relationship further, though into what unfathomable abyss that could have taken us I cannot say. Rapturous, living in mid-air, I tried to feign casualness, pretend that this was merely clever intellectual sparring, the mental equivalent of a pair of otters playfully circling each other in an elegant ballet of point and counterpoint. Joanne of course saw right through this. I have no idea how much she loved me and to what extent she only endured and encouraged me because my amateur and desperate adoration flattered her. She did spend every spare moment with me for those few short weeks. I would give anything, put up with anything, to feel like that again. When it was time for her to leave Winnipeg, I went into emotional shock and began to come unglued. Agonized, exhausted, helpless, I shrugged her off, told her (ridiculous, rehearsed words that haunt me to this day) that it was the wrong place, the wrong time, and maybe, maybe…. After I walked away she ran after me, and told me, crying, never to do that again. If I had not been already, I was undone. She came to visit me a year later and I repeated my callous, inept, distant and outrageous act of indifference. I wanted to die. The next three years were a blur of nihilism and numb denial, and then, with some money saved and my idealism seizing control, I wrote and asked her to drop everything and go traveling with me. I was so broken I hadn’t and couldn’t think my proposal ahead any further than that. Her postcard reply was short and ambiguous “not now, Dave”. To resolve the ambiguity I went to visit her and spent a few short hours with her asking why not. Whatever she said, I did not hear, after the word “no”. Even then, she left a door open, saying she was surprised and flattered I would travel so far just to see her. Fucking idiot that I am, I failed to determine whether this meant “don’t give up” or was just politeness. As I walked out of her parents’ house that day I died. It took me many years after that to put the shattered wreck that was left of me, through no fault of anyone but myself, back together. Over the next few years I visited Joanne’s house once more, and called one desperate night by phone, both times talking to her tactful father, since she had moved away. It has been thirty years since I last saw Joanne. My wife of twenty-three years saw some promise in me in 1980, shook me out of my self-indulgent trance, and has made me whole, successful, content, productive, a competent provider and a responsible citizen — I owe her everything. It is a debt unpaid, an extraordinary favour unreturned. But that is a subject for another story. For the last three days I have been wondering, half with curiosity, half with dread, whether Joanne would come to the reunion. I expected that if she did, there would be a rush of emotion, a catharsis, an answering of thirty-year-old unanswered questions. Closure. I cried on the plane, listening to Helplessly Hoping and Baby Boom Baby and I’m Going to Go Back There Some Day and, of course, Rachmaninoff. This afternoon, Joanne came to the reunion. We hugged, traded histories, acknowledged significant others, spoke of getting together, the four of us perhaps. There was no rush of emotion, no catharsis. There was no asking and answering of questions, although she offered the opportunity. Whether there was closure or not, I do not know. I suspect that (my fault entirely) there was not. Thirty years… There is a dragon here, and unlike the dragons I’ve written about elsewhere this one is at once real and fabrication. The dragon is the half-true story that I made up thirty-four years ago. Like any wonderful or terrible story it gets better, richer, truer with time and re-telling. But it isn’t really a half-true story. It is a toxic mix of two stories: What actually happened and what might have been. What actually happened, what we really had and felt for each other, is a true story with a lot of missing facts. It is possible, though far from certain, that we will one day know the missing facts, and the true story will be at least complete, if not free from nuance, from ambiguity, from doubt. There could be closure to this story. What might have been from the fateful day thirty years ago to today, is not a true story. It is fiction. Like any might-have-been story rooted in regret it is of course dangerous, larger-than-life, unambiguously wonderful and full of joy and redemption. It is tyrannical and the cause of grief, guilt, discontent and madness. The power of this story is our wish that it be true, and the impossibility of proving it ‘false’. It can only be defused by recognizing it, deep inside, as unreal, an impossibility, a fiction. What might have been is what was not. Joanne’s visit has at last allowed me to recognize my might-have-been story as fictional. That’s not a denial that, if (huge if) something that did not occur had occurred, it might have been. But, like a vivid science fiction story that describes what might have been if an asteroid had hit the Earth in the 1970s, it is still a fiction. Once you’ve read it, you put it away and don’t think about it further. It is unarguably unreal, fictitious, even a lie. Without the toxic catalysis of the might-have-been story, the what actually happened story becomes moot. Can’t change that. Done and decided. Can’t go back again. Can you regret what actually happened? Of course, and closure, knowing what actually happened and why, can help deal with that. But with the might-have-been story back in the bookshelf, closure of the what actually happened story isn’t really that important. Yesterday’s news. Far more useful, and satisfying, is to talk here, now, about philosophy and the environment and politics and economics and language and literature and music and ideas and emotions and how to save the world. And maybe even actually make it happen. Now there’s a story. Fellow graduates and readers that stumble on this strange and sad reminiscence, may you find peace and closure through discovery of what really happened in your own history, and may you have the extraordinary sense to put your fictions of what might have been, to rest. |
June 14, 2003
TRADE OFF: BEST CITIES IN THE WORLD TO LIVE
 There are at least a dozen surveys done each year that purport to tell you what the best city is to live in. Unfortunately, generally, the best cities also seem to be the most expensive. So I decided to develop a composite ranking of cities’ quality of life and cost of living. I took two recent quality of life survey rankings, and two recent cost of living survey rankings (cheapest to most expensive), and computed the average combined ranking. Here are the results:
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June 13, 2003
TWELVE TARGETS FOR BUSINESS INNOVATION
 Lots of blogs write about how to innovate. I’ve written about it. There are whole blogs devoted to it. But I’ve been spending a lot of time in business travel and business meetings lately, and that’s given me some ideas on what to innovate. So if you’ve got the inclination, the time and the know-how, but aren’t sure where to apply it, here are a dozen aspects of business in desperate need of innovation:Paper: As a colleague of mine once said, “paper creates offices”. He was right. We need it, but in its current form it’s wasteful and horrible to organize and share. It needs to be erasable, and self-scanning. Kind of like an Etch-a-Sketch with memory and better resolution. Surely we can do better than this ancient product, and save a million forests in the process. |
