Hostelity

Hostels are really really strange environments. Right now I'm sitting in the common room at Canadiana Backpackers Hostel, writing and watching a group of very drunk Peruvians play cards, drink more, and just generally carouse. One of them just sat on my table until one of the men pressed her back towards me in a half-welcomed embrace. She pushes him away laughing and staggers forward a couple steps. On the other side of the room, a couple of GWAR fans I spoke to earlier are standing over the garbage can. One of them seems about ready to throw up, but doesn't.

Oh where my adventures have led me.

Charter 08 and Chinese Censorship

I know there are a great many important things afoot in the world right now, but it seems to me that this really ought to be front page news worldwide. A group of Chinese intellectuals, government officials, and ordinary people signed a bigdealio declaration in favor of democratic reforms, human rights, and a new constitution two weeks ago and there's been a rather dramatic crackdown internally since. Lots of writers and journalists are being put in jail, and it looks like this could get real interesting real fast.

Unsurprisingly enough, China's internet censorship has bounced back up in the last week, including the New York Times. Kristoff's asked if anyone is still reading, with some interesting responses. Curious times indeed.

23.

I am sitting in the Canadiana Hostel in western Toronto, drinking free coffee and enjoying the Christmas soundtrack. Today is my birthday. I am 23. I am also alone in a foreign city and completely in love with everything. I have a pile of good books to keep me company for the next few days: I'm hoping to finish Sources of the Self in the next week, maybe get in to some of the novels I got for free, beginning with V.S. Naipaul's Half a Life. I fly home in two days. Then it will be Christmas. Thank God.

Now, rest, reading, probably further posting later today.

Things I'm reading that you should read too

Woke up this morning to a VERY large snowstorm blasting outside my window. I may make the attempt to visit the Royal Ontario Art Museum I was planning but then again maybe not.

Regardless of the weather, the internet is full of interesting and useful things, two of which I'll pass on:

1. There's a great article about Samuel "Dictionary" Johnson in the New Yorker this month. What a deeply interesting and strange and lonely person. Sample:

The dictionary’s ostensible purpose of settling and “fixing” the language was a chimera. Its real, implicit purpose was to reassure a growing new world of middle-class readers that there were rules, and someone who could give them. Young men on the street, people in boats on the Thames, bluestockings at dinner parties would stop him, gather up their courage, and ask him how to pronounce “irreparable.” Johnson was sometimes annoyed by the constant demands on him to be the No. 1 Word Man, full of wise definings. As he said once, “we all know what light is; but it is not easy to tell what it is.”

2.) The Atlantic scores an interview with Gao Xiqing, head of China's dollar investments. Very interesting. Also, brilliantly titled. And scary.

I was predicting this many years ago. In 1999 or 2000, I gave a talk to the State Council [China’s main ruling body], with Premier Zhu Rongji. They wanted me to explain about capital markets and how they worked. These were all ministers and mostly not from a financial background. So I wondered, How do I explain derivatives?, and I used the model of mirrors.

First of all, you have this book to sell. [He picks up a leather-bound book.] This is worth something, because of all the labor and so on you put in it. But then someone says, “I don’t have to sell the book itself! I have a mirror, and I can sell the mirror image of the book!” Okay. That’s a stock certificate. And then someone else says, “I have another mirror—I can sell a mirror image of that mirror.” Derivatives. That’s fine too, for a while. Then you have 10,000 mirrors, and the image is almost perfect. People start to believe that these mirrors are almost the real thing. But at some point, the image is interrupted. And all the rest will go.

When I told the State Council about the mirrors, they all started laughing. “How can you sell a mirror image! Won’t there be distortion?” But this is what happened with the American economy, and it will be a long and painful process to come down.

I think we should do an overhaul and say, “Let’s get rid of 90 percent of the derivatives.” Of course, that’s going to be very unpopular, because many people will lose jobs.

Election Night Pt. 3

I promised photos of election night a few months ago and finally managed to bug Daniel into passing them on. Here they are then, better late than never. (Thanks Daniel!)

Fig 1.1
Approaching the crowd

Fig 1.2
Flags and crowds

Fig 1.3

Word comes that Obama wins.
(That's a generational change he's got caught between his thumb and forefinger there.)


Fig 1.4
Two revelers


Fig 1.5
Two more revelers

Protests!

So as many readers may be aware, there's been a rather large shake-up in the Canadian government in the last few months. Stephen Harper, the Conservative prime minister, has inspired very little confidence with his economic policies and as a result the opposition announced he would be removed from office and they would form a coalition government in his place, likely with Michael Ignatieff as its head. This is an unsurprisingly controversial move, since Canada has no real history of coalition government and the only way to make it a real majority coalition is to involve the Bloc Quebecois, who the conservatives suggest would tear the country apart with their seperatist leanings. But where there is controversy, there are rallies, and as it so happens one of them happened literally in my backyard.

Of course I went, and I borrowed my roommate's camera. (Thanks Bojan!) Here is the afternoon in images:

Fig 1.1
A first take. The building in the background is city hall.

Fig 1.2
Some parts of the 62 percent majority.

Fig 1.3
Mathematics, once again obscuring as much as it reveals. Thanks math.



Party Bigwigs also made appearances:

Fig 2.1
Stephan Dion, then head of the Liberal Party.

Fig 2.2
Jack Layton of the New Democratic Party.


Fig 2.3
Broken Social Scene, life of the party. (Unseen to the left are Jack Layton and Stephan Dion standing awkwardly onstage.)



Fig 3
Falsehoods

The Excruciatingly Slow Hand of Justice

About time.

In which I implicitly honor the monarchy

Last week I went to see Handel's Messiah at the Knox College chapel. It was good. Because I'm sick to death of writing useful, interesting, informative prose in a linear format, I'm opting for a list!


Chapel:
Like the rest of Knox, fake Gothic with unpolished wood and matte stone. Humble, yet oddly disconcerting; machine-produced materials laboring to appear hand-made. I imagine John Ruskin as a suicide bomber.

Me:
Needlessly fancy.

Date:
Same as above.

Handel:
The story goes that Handel's first performance of the Messiah was not held in London, which was New York in those days, but in Dublin (which was rather like Buffalo). The concert was small, in a church, and used around thirty musicians total. This nights performance is modeled on the Dublin performance, or at least as much as we can put together, which is not a lot, but its a much warmer and ultimately much more human kind of piece; harmony over scale, honesty over pomp. Music for people, not kings.

King George III:
King George III liked the later showings so much that he stood up for the Hallelujah chorus. Now the rule is that everyone has to stand up for that part of the show. I didn't know this, so that part came as a bit of a shock.

Choir:
Seven members, plus the four soloists. When they open their books in unison it reminds me of a flock of birds.

Soloist 1:
Dances a little as he sings. I don't know if this is normal. His hair is curly and his demeanor chirpy. Nice voice too.

Soloist 2:
Eyebrows, beard. Would look good in a devil costume.

Soloist 3:
Looked very very sad for the sad parts. Unsure how to interpret.

Sheep:
We like them?

Couple sitting in front of us:
The guy looks suspiciously like a young Bill Gates.

Rest of audience, excluding author and company:
Graying. This is the first time I've been around people not between 18-25 in months and it is good to be near them.

The Night:
Cold, dark, empty, completely beautiful. Stars are very bright. I scuttle home down university in a large green coat, head bent and ears ringing.



(P.S. Thanks ma and pa. It was really good.)

The End?

Dear Readers,

I know I've been rather negligent with updating this thing for the last month or so. But as of last night at 5 or so, finals are finally done. Forever. I am now done with my college career.

(Subdued cheering from the exhausted villagers. John crosses the finish line. The propaganda minister applauds wildly then makes snide remarks under his breath.)

I now have a week which I hope to spend doing interesting things in toronto, which will hopefully translate in to interesting reading. I may also put up posts of other interesting and worthwhile things out here from earlier in the semester that haven't gotten written yet. So we'll see.

In the meantime, here are some photos from our (Bojan, Helen, self) adventures into the closed shopping mall under our hall.

Further adventures in Toronto strangers

Episode 1:

"Gnnaaaaaaaaaggghhh."

Somewhere between death metal and laringitus. I look around me, startled; seemingly empty transit station, merchant stalls, magazines, gum, tile floor. Not another soul in sight.

"Gnaaaaggghh."

Suddenly notice the guy behind the counter, doing what I think is clearing his throat. Except its at a customer, similarly just materialized and who walks away looking disconcerted. Death-metal-laringitis glances towards me. I glance first at the magazines (scientific american) then seeing that he's going to try to sell me something, quickly exit the station.

Fear trumps curiosity.

Episode 2:

Act 1:
A pirate is going down the steps to the subway. I only notice him just before he vanishes, but one of the disembarking passengers and lock eyes and he nods towards tricorn hat now making its way down the stairs, amused. As am I.

Act 2:
Pirate sighted smoking in front of Polish League Hall with group of homeless people. He is wearing sneakers.