Cooking is much more “therapeutic” than therapy, which made me very depressed this morning and into the afternoon. What makes this recipe so great is how inexpensive it was - because i stole the halibut. The Loblaws in North York has converted most of its cashier lines to self-serve machines and they don’t work very well. When the machine i was using freaked out when i tried to scan $30 worth of fish and then the attendant took over three minutes to come and help me, i decided that i wasn’t going to pay for the fish. Apparently this one act has proved that i am starting to fit in at the Diamond Shack.

BAKED HALIBUT WITH CREOLE SAUCE

Fish to serve 6

Juice of a lime

Pepper to taste

Butter

1 c. water

CREOLE SAUCE:

1 sm. onion, chopped

1 green pepper, chopped

1 stalk celery

1 tbsp. butter

1 level tbsp. flour

1 lg. can tomatoes

1 can select mushrooms (save juice)

1/2 c. mushroom slices

a splash of red wine

If using frozen fish, thaw completely. Line a cookie sheet with foil. Place fish on pan. Pepper and salt to taste. Add lime juice and butter fish well. Add 1 cup of water. Bake until done, about 45 minutes to 1 hour, in a 350 to 400 degree oven. Serve with sauce.

CREOLE SAUCE: Cook onion, green pepper, and celery in a skillet with 1 large tablespoon of butter from 10 to 15 minutes, until tender but not brown. Add flour and cook 2 minutes. Add tomatoes, mushrooms and wine. Cook 10 minutes using juice of mushrooms as part of the liquid. Spoon over fish as it is served.

I feel like the protagonist in Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose now. Apparently, the secret wings of the library in that classic may be modelled on the futurist, concrete monstrosity which U of T tours claims looks like a peacock.

I have come to the conclusion that the architects of Robarts, Mathers and Haldenby, may have reached a new level of stupidity in this construction. Asides from its ugliness, the miscalculation of the weight of the building (just how DO you forget that the third largest book collection in North American is going to way, well, A LOT?) and the misuse of a beautiful skyline (there are almost no windows in the stacks of Robarts or its study spaces), the floors in the stacks are covered in cheap linoleum which makes even sneakers’ noise reverberate down the acoustic propagating corridors - this is particularly unpleasant when it has snowed or rained. I find it difficult to concentrate to the “squish, squish” of people padding to the bathroom.

I foiled it though. The apexes house the only windows of any size in Robarts and there is one desk to work on in front of each apex. The desk has a back to it so you can’t see out the windows. In a stroke of genius i decided to climb on a the chair and look over the desk… Lo and behold… i found a cozy window sill and heater on the other side. Using the corner as a chairback, which i padded out with my coat and scarf, i sat back there reading for over 3 hours last Wednesday. The desk served as a sound barrier. I was waiting for security to yell at me, but it never happened.

I pass this information on to others who, like me, found the one redeeming quality of the concrete monstrosity that is McGill’s McLennan library it’s great use of the VIEW out the windows onto the McGill campus. There is nothing like watching snow fall while taking a studying break.

It was snowing on Wednesday - and i got to enjoy it even though i was holed up in a library.

Take that Robarts!

I finished A Wrinkle in Time on Sunday night. You wouldn’t expect from my previous post about how Children’s Literature is a secret passion that it would have inspired a brief bout of pseudo-Depression, but it did.

A Wrinkle in Time is great - please don’t get me wrong. It’s a child’s version of (i.e. deals with the same themes as) such science fiction classics as A Brave New World and 1984. It’s a celebration of the values of creativity and autonomy that Western culture, at least ostensibly, seeks to foster in its children. It’s funny. It’s sweet. It’s plot-driven (something Tunku Varadarajan argues in “Generation Hex: A first-time reader of the ‘Potter’ books searches for meaning in the final volume,” Wall Street Journal, July 28, 2007, is the key both the success and greatness of Harry Potter). However, i find myself rolling my eyes into the back of my head and giving a cold shudder whenever “the power of love” saves the day. I had this reaction to Potter too.

Is being adult being so jaded that you can’t even appreciate the warm, fuzziness of children’s narrative even when you appreciate the form and its conventions? Or has my relationship history ruined one of my favourite pastimes?

The therapist would not give me an answer on this one…

Wikipedia is, by far, one of the greatest innovations of our age. It does for the information available on the internet what Boyle’s innovation did for the scientific method (he got a group of reliable witness to attest to the “fact” of the vacuum created within his laboratory - the facts were now represented by the people, taking people out of science, effectively). What i love about Wikipedia is the list of sources and further readings at the bottom of any good page - SO much more effective than a google search.

Now, i realize the problem with Wikipedia being used as an authority for those of us unable to discern the grains from amongst the chaff, but, frankly, it’s not like Britannica or the OED are the be all and end all of their respective types of reference works either.

So, what have i been doing lately? Writing the entry in Wikipedia on my FAVOURITE work in the entire world (LOL), Boccaccio’s De casibus virorum illustrium. It is taking me a long time to write out all the lives included, translate them into English and then find the appropriate wikipedia page to link to. It is nice to play with the text. I’ve never had access to a complete edition before and now i have to take the time to figure out which figures are included, how they are, and why they’re important. It’s procrastinating - but to an end.

Of course, reading all these other wiki pages has inspired me to edit other errors, add references that should be there and correct errors i encounter (like the erroneous claims that Boccaccio’s On Famous Women has 106 (it’s 104) tales and is the first example of a collection of women’s biographies in Western Literature (it is the first SURVIVING example - we know of others that were written but destroyed or lost).

We went to see Beowulf last night. Many liberties were taken with the original story - but as i am not a huge fan of the tale, this didn’t bother me much at all. I liked the rewrite of the curse to make it more… humane? I liked the character development which just isn’t there in the poem. I liked the bawdy jokes and the humour.

There were aspects of the movie, however, which i did not like. For one, i don’t think the animation did anything for it at all. In fact, it made the whole “and his name will be known forever” bit less understandable for those of the audience who were unaware that Beowulf, like the Iliad, the Odyssey and the Aeneid, are stories still told today and, for the former two, believed to be based loosely on real people. Heroes are difficult for us to swallow - somehow depicting them in animation turns them into myth rather than legend and i think much of the plot in Beowulf needs to be legend for it to be at all believable.

I missed the sword, even though i found the sword irritating when i read Beowulf. It was all the book seemed to be about… i had been looking forward to this massive, gleaming, phallic symbol… and was disappointed. Sniff.

I also commend the writers for their attempt at integrating the “christianization of the north” narrative into the storyline - but you didn’t make it clear what was going on. Everyone in the theatre appeared to scoff at the lines about Christ because (a) you didn’t make it clear that this story is based on a poem from the middle ages about the period when the North is being christianized and (b) you didn’t develop the theme in your own re-write at all.

I liked the character of the wise Queen. I think she made the movie more palatable to a female audience. Even a contemporary male audience. It’s difficult to empathize with a hero.

We saw it in 3D. I had never seen a movie in 3D before. It wasn’t worth the extra $5.

I would have liked to have seen real actors attacked by CGI dragons. Real blood and gore… a real Angelina Joli bringing sexy back… LOL.

I wouldn’t recommend going to see it on a full-price night, nor if you are particularly devoted to the written version, but as far as adaptations go - it’s an interesting one. And, if you do go, let me know what you think of the rendition of Grendel… i think they could have done better, but i don’t have any brilliant suggestions as to how.

“Know that i will miss you with every beat of my heart. I love you. I always will.”

I don’t know if it’s a good or a bad thing when someone else articulates a feeling you’ve been aching to describe. It’s not like being able to describe it relieves the pain, nor would i want it to.

That’s my 2 minutes of complaining for this hour. The no-complaining zone has been reinstated. Fines will be levied.

On second thought… i think a good cry would help. It can’t hurt.

Ah. Harry Potter, Peter Rabbit, Curious George, Doctor Seuss, the Berenstein Bears, Clifford, Olivia, the Babysitters’ Club, The Borrowers, Watership Down - how i love thee.

Veronica and i share a childish passion for literature aimed at people supposedly less intellectually developed than us. Ha. Yesterday hours, and yes i mean hours, were spent wandering around the children’s section of the local Chapters. We are amassing collections of the classics (sadly, only two books of the “classics” section have not been read by me: Anne of Green Gables and A Wrinkle in Time. Veronica owns both) in consumer-frenzy and procrastination.

I bought and read Le Petit Prince last week. i had never read it before, if you can believe it. It was glorious. It was quaint. It was moralizing. It was sweet. It was pedantic and at times predictable. I couldn’t decide what it was about… ok, i am relatively sure that the flower is supposed to be a stand in for womankind, and that would be highly chauvinist, but i don’t give a damn. I love stories with pictures. I also love woodcuts (and, hence, Gustave Dore).

A Wrinkle in Time is my new “fallin’ asleep book.”

Are there any suggestions?

Combating genocide, ethnic cleansing and other forms of hatred all too frequently is not a top priority even for those of us who ostensibly promise to apply the lessons of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust: Countries cannot be trusted to protect their populations nor are crimes against humanity perpetrated without a ‘rationale.’ From November 9th to November 11th, scholars, activists and concerned citizens gathered at the University Ottawa for the Continuing Crisis in Darfur Conference to better understand the horrors in Sudan, the media portrayal (or lack their of) of the killings, mass rapes and forced expulsions, and the options for realizing change in the short-term.

A panel composed of Prof. Error Mendes of the University of Ottawa, Hon. Irwin Cotler, MP (Liberal) and Mr. David Matas of B’nai Brith Canada addressed the international response to the crisis and did not shy from explicitly drawing analogies between the Final Solution and the Darfurian genocide.

“IDP camps no better than concentration camps”

Prof. Mendes was at pains to point out the relationship between ethnic cleansing and land clearings for the development of natural resources. The Khartoum government stalls and ignores both international sanctions and its own agreements while “genocide by attrition” is effected. Land and wells are defiled or re-settled with nomadic or semi-nomadic peoples while those fleeing from mass murders and rapes to IDP camps die of starvation and disease. Khartoum builds at break-neck speed with funds from the World Bank and IMF as its population is decimated. The reverberations of Lebensraum sent chills down a listener’s spine.

“International community dithers while Darfurians continue to die….a betrayal, repudiation and affront to historical lessons”

Hon. Irwin Cotler, MP, argued that perhaps the biggest obstacle to change is a “failure to acknowledge.” In the six-week election campaign of 2005, not one of the party leaders mentioned Darfur in their campaign nor were they asked about their views in a publicized interview. Cotler’s verdict: “Genocide not on the radar screen.”

The former Justice minister proposed a nine-point plan for ending the crisis – with or without Sudanese support and consent because “we cannot be hostages to the perpetrators of genocide.” Key items included the immediate deployment of the UN hybrid force, a bolstering of the African Union Mission, the withdrawal of unconditional financial support of the Khartoum government, divestment and the end of the current culture of impunity that permits treaties to be broken without repercussion.

“Genocide occurs in verbal camouflage”

David Matas approached the battle against genocide from the unique perspective of B’nai Brith Canada and recent attempts at holding the perpetrators of genocide accountable for their atrocities. Arguing against a 2005 UN report that characterized the crisis in Darfur as “war crimes”, but not genocide, Mr. Matas deplored the use of racial bigotry, couched in terms of self-defense, as a defense against accusations of genocide. Genocidal intent should be about how the perpetrators determine who should be killed – and if “rebel” is equated with ethnicity, that’s genocide.

Mr. Matas showed concern that the current mis-categorization of the massacres, mass rapes and forced expulsions as crimes against humanity but not genocide will prevent juridical justice from being brought to bear on those responsible. He proposed an answer for concerned Canadians. Instead of depending on the international court at La Hague, we must apply universal jurisdiction. Trials against perpetrators of crimes against humanity and genocide can be undertaken by any country that ratified the UN agreement. We ought to prosecute the complicit as soon as they cross our borders.

During the question period, a representative from STAND Canada asked the obvious, “What can we do?” The unanimous answer was “ask pointed questions, like ‘what have you done to promote the Canadian Pension Funds divestion of the Khartoum government?’, of our MPs to shame and embarrass them for shirking their responsibilities.” Where there is political will, there will be a way.

still sick.

lost 1.5 lbs over the past week and only made it to the gym and yoga once each. Yeah for me!

Working on getting graphics for the new hosting service website launch. Still haven’t written the article on the Continuing Crisis in Darfour Conference, but it’s on the list for tonight when i get home from Italian class at the ungodly hour of 10pm. I have a quiz today.

I picked up a dozen yellow long-stemmed roses as a belated 50th birthday present for my aunt before getting on the train to Ottawa. Walking through the Eaton Centre, onto the subway and sitting waiting for the gynormous line of people to board the train from Toronto to Ottawa with stops at Kingston, Smiths Falls, etc., i realized that a bouquet of flowers, like a baby and pets, suspends the usually followed rules of NO STARING AT STRANGERS.

The train ride was both long and horrific. Seated just out of my line of sight was a 30-something overweight blonde woman who felt the need to monologue about every aspect of her life to her two companions, with baby. The baby was less irritating. I started counting, and the word FACEBOOK came up in conversation no less than seven times in four hours and 14 minutes. Perchance the lady thinks that her allegiance to facebook maketh her cool? Facebook has gotten out of control. This woman needs a blog to inflict her rambling on only those people who choose to read/listen. I could not have been happier about getting off that train.

In the continuation of a good food week, the auntie and i went to Kelsey’s for salads. The auntie is on a designer diet and has lost 16lbs. The list of foods she is permitted is only 2 pages long. I shudder at the thought of not eating diary products for a full four months.

With eggs in my belly and a copy of Thomas L. Laqueur’s Solitary Sex (excellent!) under my arm, i head out to a panel at the Darfour Conference being held at the University of Ottawa this morning.

I have a work-able novel plan… more news on that later as i continue to brainstorm about the details. You will be happy to know that it has both beginning AND end. I also bought webspace Thursday evening - gearing up towards my 500th post and all.