The week that was: 15 January 2010
Saturday, January 16th, 20101. REMEMBERING
We still don’t know what the final death toll will be for the devastating earthquake in Haiti. Some are estimating it could reach 200,000, which is so large a number as to be incomprehensible by the human brain.
That’s why, I think, in disasters like this we gravitate towards memorializing those to whom we have some kind of tie. For me, that means that I listen with interest to reports on the radio of the Canadians who perished on Tuesday (just six confirmed, though more than 1,400 are still unaccounted for).
The highest-profile Canadian death was that of Georges Anglade, a Haitian-born Quebecer who first to Canada in 1969. He was a scholar, writer and activist who, among other things, founded the Haitian chapter of PEN (a global movement that supports freedom of speech for writers). Over the last forty years, he went back and forth between Haiti and Canada — he and his wife, Mireille Neptune, were visiting Hait this time for a literary conference. Read more about Anglade in this CBC story; it should tell you something that the guy who the CBC has turned to for comment on Anglade’s life is none other than John Ralston Saul.
Of course, the vast majority of those who died on Tuesday had no such claims to fame and praise. We won’t know their names or see their pictures — not many of them. But their deaths are equal in weight to that of a luminary like Anglade, and it’s important to remember that.
2. TALKING TO STRANGERS
My friend Brett, a history scholar, extrovert, and all-around excellent guy, linked to this article on Facebook. I found it very encouraging, because recently, I’ve found the value of talking to people to be quite great in my own life. I know there are plenty of misanthropes out there. Those who don’t want to be bothered by others. Those who want to be hermetically sealed in their dwellings, free from the assualt of the mere presence of other humans. (They know who they are.) This is not, I feel, the best way to go through life.
From the National Post, by Dave Bidini:
If you don’t ask questions, you’ll never have any answers. Since you are not a newt or a harpie eagle or a mudfish, you have the ability to find out why that sad woman in the grey coat passes by your house the same time every afternoon or how come Chilean cherries are cheaper than Canadian ones or where East Gwillimbury is or why so much Michael Bublé all the time, every time? One by one, you’ll drop these answers like pennies or stones in your coat pocket, and the heavier the pocket gets, the more proud and self-assured and alive you’ll feel. You’ll feel as if you’re an important participant in the activity of living and a surviving character in the great, sad, beautiful comedy of life. And in the end, you will die filled up with as much knowledge and empathy as any wild creature who ever walked the earth.
There are exceptions to this rule, as there are to any, but I do believe this: people are interesting and worthwhile. I really do enjoy meeting a new person and getting to know a bit about their life. The other week, I struck up a conversation with a new arrival to Canada, a Tunisian-born woman who speaks Arabic, French and English and has worked as a translator in all three languages and, on top of that, has mothered nine children. We exchanged email addresses. Now I know where to go if I need an Arabic translator! You can’t put a value on a connection like that!
Sometimes I’m too tired or otherwise grouchy to engage with a stranger, but I try when I can. The world is pretty lonely if we don’t talk to each other.
3. LATE NIGHT WARS
I think the current debacle that is the National Broadcasting Corporation in the United States has provided a much-needed escape for we who follow the current events of the world. Do the ins and outs of the concerns of rich white guys on television matter? No, not really. Not when a poverty-stricken island nation is in literal shambles. But non-problems can be a welcome respite from real ones. And that’s the case with the Conan/Leno thing. My favourite place to get the latest on all the back-and-forth has been Gawker.TV. Visit the #jayleno tag there for all the clips and analysis you can handle. Evidence going back decades that Leno is, in fact, a dick, and more evidence that Conan is, in fact, awesome. Not to mention Jimmy Kimmel’s scathing entrees into the fray.
Obviously, I’m on Team Coco. But I’m not worried. Conan is good at what he does and he has a large, loyal, and, perhaps most importantly for his long-term survival, young fanbase. Leno’s viewers will pretty much all be dead soon. Then he’ll have no choice but to make his retreat to Vegas and never bother us over the airwaves again!
4. HEL-LOOKS CHASER
You know you want to look this awesome in the snow.
5. FURTHER TO WINTER FASHION
The Freelancer’s Fashionblog has a wonderful illustrated post on looking fabulous in cold weather. (Disclaimer: when she says “really really cold”, she clearly means “moderately-to-pretty cold,” because where I’m from, “really, really cold” requires Sorel boots, which will never be fashionable, but will insure you survive the winter frostbite free and therefore are quite necessary at times.)
