The Year In YouTube

Although I still regard the internet as chiefly yet another reading resource, this year I clocked in record amounts of time on YouTube. I wasn't on the prowl for anything particularly colourful or edgy -- mostly I was hoping to pick up a few skills I'm sadly lacking in, especially with regards to guitar. Consequently I've spent the equivalent of days (and counting) watching these two chuckleheads:

Korg's Miku pedal was not a piece of tech I splurged on, I hasten to add. But for viewers who couldn't be arsed about electric guitars, amps and related ephemera, this probably rates as the most entertaining (and brief) video in Anderton's expanding catalogue.

It's tempting to link to a bunch of videos that helped me assemble gear and improve technique, but the exploration of any given passion is a bottomless rabbit-hole best reserved for people of like minds -- and I do not want to presume. (OK, just one -- here's an amp I bought, thanks to this guy's straight-forward demonstration of its strengths and qualities).

While I'm at it, though, thanks to YouTube and Joel's generous heads-up I tucked into this lecture about the Münster Rebellion (it's three hours long, so you might want to bookmark it).

Mm -- "lecture" is a little dry, actually. Dan Carlin is apparently a radio personality who has transitioned into an entertaining history buff. His delivery aims to "engage," and alas for me I find it has quite the opposite effect. I say "alas" because it is evident that Carlin and his researchers go to great lengths to assemble and synthesize some very complicated episodes from our distant past -- and the corporate misbehaviour of Jan van Leiden and his hapless followers is nothing if not complicated.

Complicated, if familiar. If you're a Mennonite you doubtless know about the Münster Rebellion -- two weeks were devoted to its study in my high school. It is largely considered the genesis of the Mennonites, because our namesake lost a brother in the mêlée, and consequently hammered out the pacifist doctrine that his beleaguered flock have (with occasional exceptions) adhered to for the last 500 years.

Two weeks of study -- seems a reasonable precaution for a roomful of kids not far removed from the ages and passions of this particular rebellion. I wouldn't mind if this became a familiar chapter in everyone's common history, so Dan Carlin gets another link from me. Take and read -- or listen, as the case may be.

"Dirk, hold up! The gaol has wifi!"

Does Everything Have To Be So Darn Complicated?

Some links that have me cogitating, this week.

First, the meat and potatoes -- or fleisch un leedschocke, to resort to tribal vernacular . . .

Sunday dinner will be served at 2:30, three hours after the praedjer's final "amen!"

. . . my former neighbor Miriam Toews has a piece in Granta in which she meditates on violence and other abominable secrets that permeate our humble Kleine. My view towards Miriam's writing tends to be rather jaundiced -- she often reads like she's got scores to settle, and she's packin' heat! -- but I think this piece is quite good. She gives elegant expression to her sense of mission as well as her perceived place in the pantheon of Canucklehead Mennonite Literati -- Rudy Wiebe lit the torch, basically, and she's running with it (along with all the rest of 'em, who aren't making the pages of Granta).

Other Matters:

Peak TV: "Westworld" cannot outsmart the internet! Westworld is one of a handful of new shows that sound terrifically promising, but I've held off watching so much as a single episode. The reason: why should I commit myself to an unspecified number of hours of television, only to court the very real possibility of Walking Dead-levels of viewer disappointment? Nope, Battlestar Galactica cured me of such folly. Now I wait for a series to conclude, either by design or by cancellation, before I watch so much as a single minute.

Exception: The Americans -- and only because they promise to wrap it up in Season 5.

No wait, there are other exceptions. I borrowed from the library the first season of Agents of SHIELD. The family watched three or four episodes and decided we didn't need to be underwhelmed any further. Which got me wondering: what happened to Joss Whedon? Firefly was insanely punchy -- every episode a tutorial in lean, mean story-telling. When did he become so reliant on the long, gassy story-arc?

Doubts niggled, so I queued up Buffy The Vampire Slayer. It only took the first two episodes of season 1 to realize the long, gassy story-arc is Whedon's preferred canvass -- even ardent fans recommend newcomers skip straight to season 3. Would a project like Buffy stand a chance in today's TV market?

Peak TV Satire: "In reality, our prolonged love affair with cracking wise wasn’t a tonic that shook people out of their apathy — it was a symptom of it."

So what does Canucklehead Poindexter Charles Taylor make of it all?

Related: God, I miss Richard Rorty.

Let's bring it back to the Mennonites (cos that's what this is all about): the same day I read Miriam's essay, I heard this radio doc ("Exiled in Canada: a sex offender finds refuge with Mennonites" -- hey, look at you, CBC!) whilst running errands. As I mulled over this particular story, I thought of Miriam's magnum opus, A Complicated Kindness, and wondered, "What acts of kindness are uncomplicated?" Not many. "Greater love hath no man," and all that -- possibly the most complicated act of kindness to go on sacred record, triggering some powerfully complicated chapters in history (including). If it's a lack of complication you're after, it's best to stick to the baser emotions in the palette of human experience: fear, anger, a sense of grievance. The rest of us in search of the fabled third way are fated to parse through manifold complications -- until our final trip to church, toes-up.

Gimme

It's been a nutty week, so I'm asking for a gimme. Here is a collection of 21-year-old infantryman Victor Lundy's sketches from WWII -- enjoy.

Sharon Jones

The album cover for 100 Days, 100 Nights (2007) was my first exposure to Sharon Jones.

I had yet to hear a note of her singing or the Dap-Kings' playing, but even so: what was there not to love about this album? A gorgeous woman in a retro-frame that called to mind the soul and funk legends of yore -- the material within was either going to be a failed pose (in which case, thanks for the eye-candy) or a triumphal delivery on its promise.

The album delivered, and how. Listening to the music prompted further meditation on the cover. How old was this woman? I'd never dare to guess, her performance made the task too formidable. Her voice suggested experience beyond the merely mortal, even as the energy behind it was the very essence of youthful vitality.

Jones and the Kings got better with every album. The shows were another reality altogether. People who went to see her were glad they did. A consummately generous performer, gone at 60.

Too generous to be chasing after crowns -- Aretha may be the undisputed Queen of Soul, but Sharon Jones was surely its most spectacular ambassador. You know where to find her stuff. Give it a spin, won't you?

We Stand On Guard: The Ugly Canadians

My first thought when I heard about We Stand On Guard (story by Brian K. Vaughan, art by Steve Skroce and Matt Hollingsworth) was: "We've got John Milius' Red Dawn for Canucks — finally!"

Also: Wolverines are pussies.

My first thought once I'd finished was, "Yikes — does the world really need this right now?"

We used to be friends...

Vaughan's story is high-concept at its highest: the United States of America finally invades Canada for its abundant freshwater resources. Small cells of anti-American resistance fighters still exist, but they are few and far between and vastly outnumbered and outgunned.

Enter: the villains.

The characters are quick studies, all animated by understandable motivation(s). The story zips along, once you start you don't stop until it's finished. And when it's finished, it is finished — my pet peeve with comic writers is their pecuniary devotion to sequels and the like. Not so here — the well was deep, but now it's dry.

The art is top drawer. Skroce and Hollingsworth obviously revere Geoff Darrow, but where Darrow would never leave a frame until persuaded there was absolutely no room for any whitespace S&H judiciously ease back on the hyper-articulation.

Maybe this isn't the best example...

Naturally, the American invaders are a hateful, entitled bunch. And when the story begins the Canadian resistance fighters are sympathetic, by virtue of their being evident victims. But by story's end it is apparent that they, also, are hate-full. The wry, belittling generalisations we Canucks currently make of our Yankee neighbours and their quirks and foibles are given just the slightest of tweaks to express unfettered, seething contempt. It all amounts to a nihilistic thrill-ride, which has limited emotional cache for this particular reader.

But is it ART?

Shortly before 9/11 Art Spiegelman lamented that the advent of the "graphic novel" had removed some of the tawdry, trashy element to comics-making that he used to revel in. Post-9/11 Spiegelman followed that observation with a bit of agit-prop that, I thought, was a little too elevated to really penetrate the nervous system.

"Elevation" is certainly not a characteristic of We Stand On Guard — in many ways, particularly in its framing of our shared humanity, this extended pamphlet expresses a rubbishy glee akin to the leaflets of Jack Chick.

Purgatory ain't for heroes — but Hell is!

To which I say, hey, if agit-prop is your thing, the worst we could do is go ahead and call it "art."

Given current events, the social media platforms I take part in anxiously press me with Maya Angelou's words, "Hate, it has caused a lot of problems in this world, but it has not solved one yet." Closer to (my) home we have the late Leonard Cohen: "Love's the only engine of survival."

Whether or not we "need" agit-prop, it seems the world in its current state is keen to produce it.

Just remember: what he said.

Doctor Strange

"...take away seven, carry the two..."

Two observations made during the car-ride home:

1) "That was the best 3D movie I've ever seen!"

I agree. I thought of others that have qualified, in their day -- Mad Max, Para-Norman, Tron, Polar Express, that James Cameron Ayahuasca movie, etc. Most are competently framed movies with occasional scenes of 3D virtuosity. This was a movie of nearly constant 3D virtuosity, with some moments that fell back to mere competency.

2) "That was the best Marvel movie yet!"

I had to mull that over, before finally agreeing with it. The hitch was, it's the best Marvel movie largely because of the 3D razzle-dazzle. Anyone who sees it in 2D or on the home-screen will likely be underwhelmed. Immersed in 3D, the viewer is more in tune with what the good Doctor is experiencing. Non-immersed viewers will be quicker to notice the usual Marvel deficiencies.

Rachel McAdams does a terrific job of a role that was probably the emotional lynch-pin of the script she signed off on, but became something lesser during shooting. Tilda Swinton . . . if she's ever dropped the ball on a film, I've yet to see it. Similarly, Chiwetel Ejiofor. As for Benedict Cumberbatch . . .

. . . who assigned him the American accent? If he opted for it himself, I can understand -- it's catnip for British actors, just like "the" British accent is for American actors.

Voice coach: "NOT 'terrr-ibly' but 'TED-ah-blee!'"

My favourite on-screen Brits are the ones who never lose -- not completely -- the accent, no matter who they're playing. Anthony Hopkins is stellar at this -- he can be Richard Nixon for nearly four hours, and we ignore the British inflections because this man is taking on the persona of another. It's actually less distracting if he keeps a little Brit-tonation. Jeremy Irons, Bob Hoskins -- one eulogy for Hoskins elicited my hoots and howls by praising his ability to put on an American accent. He had impressive means of persuading you he was a particular character, but burying his native Cockney inflections with a phony accent was not among them.

Anyway, Cumberbatch's "American" accent was flat enough to bring back painful reminders of my former Prime Minister, Stephen Harper. Perhaps Strange was among the brains that drained south of 49 when he took office? Regardless, if Strange were to "acquire" a British accent for the next movie, I would not protest.

Where Doctor Strange succeeds spectacularly, however, is with its introduction of the Meta-verse -- the Marvel Plot-Randomizer that allows the characters and storylines to be reborn every few years. In the hands of Marvel Inc. it's a clever money-making ploy. As represented in this movie, it's surprisingly awe-inspiring.

Go see it -- in 3D. That is all.

For Yahmdallah Bjornickerford. RIP, TLD -- another blog bites the dust. Happy trails, amigo!

Post-Election Cast-About

I think another friend called it better than I did: "The worst person for this job is the one who will get the job." A safer bet I could not have made.

Either way, it goes to some joker...

For those of us unshakably predisposed to pessimism, the genuine delight we experience when proven wrong remains among the greatest of life's joys. I'm hoping I'm wrong about a lot of things -- the wronger I am, the more rapturous the next four (or more!) years will be.

It is in this admittedly sour, yet sincere, spirit of the liberal ideal that I cast about looking for people keen to make the argument -- to persuade me, in other words, not through insult and invective, but through a (relatively) dispassionate line of reasoning.

These are increasingly rare creatures, to be sure, but they do exist, and I am grateful to and for them. Two of the better examples of people applying themselves to the argument are Sax von Stroheim, blogging at Uncouth Reflections, and Robert W. Merry, writing for The National Interest. Further consideration: here is the President Elect's (for real) to-do list for the first 100 days -- give it a look and see if you can't name one or two potential influencers.

Anyway, I remain unpersuaded -- I'm convinced this guy's a disaster for everybody, including especially himself. But prove me wrong -- please! Nobody would be happier.

"Waauugh!"