My last post was a long journey into 'what is framing if it's not about putting in windows?' territory and I spent a couple of hours last night thinking about what 'framing' means in the political sense. Then I told Hotspurr the goddess of spin this morning that I had figured out framing and she handed me a post-it note saying that there was a book on elephants, which is actually about framing, which is on the must-read list of the moment.
How prescient of me, I thought.
Like love, politics is all about geography and timing.
Anyways, here's an article, from PublicEye newsletter of Fall 2005, about George Lakoff and his elephants, which suggests to me I won't agree with the book.
I need to think about the elephants a bit more. Also, having the misfortune to go to university in Ireland at the time when structuralism and deconstructionism were on the rampage probably has something to do with why I have problems with framing. Framing is an acceptance of joined-up thinking, whereas structuralism and deconstructionism is a denial of it.
I suppose I'll have to figure out where Noam sits on all of this...
You know, I can't help thinking that all this focus on the way we speak to each other is a waste of time, and we should focus more on our biological interfaces.
That'll get loads of kudos when I say that at a meeting...
Thinking about Elephants
Toward a Dialogue with George Lakoff
By William Gamson and Charlotte Ryan
Since last November's election, George Lakoff's book, Don't Think of an Elephant!, has deservedly captured the imagination of mainstream Democrats and of many progressives as well. He offers us the promise that we can achieve our political vision if only we spent a little more time "framing" our messages to appeal to mainstream America.
For a large number of Americans, he argues, the Right creates a personal connection to policies such as tax cuts for the wealthy and the idea of small government by communicating values — values like personal responsibility and the importance of a strong "traditional" family rather than big government to solve most social problems.
But we shouldn't get so excited about Lakoff 's contribution that we overlook some deafening silences or, to switch metaphors in midstream, some glaring blind spots in his way of framing American politics.
Lakoff is a cognitive psychologist but he weaves together insights shared by the sociologists, political scientists, and communications specialists who have been analyzing "framing contests" for the past 30 years. On the following points, he speaks for a broad interdisciplinary consensus:
Facts never speak for themselves. They take on their meaning by being embedded in frames, themes which organize thoughts, rendering some facts as relevant and significant and others as irrelevant and trivial. Framing matters and the contest is lost at the outset if one allows one's adversaries to define the terms of the debate. To be self-conscious about framing strategy is not being manipulative. It gives coherent meaning to what is happening in the world. One can either do it unconsciously, or with deliberation and conscious thought.
A frame is a thought organizer. Like a picture frame, it puts a rim around some part of the world, highlighting certain events and facts as important and rendering others invisible. Like a building frame, it holds things together but is covered by insulation and walls. It provides coherence to an array of symbols, images, and arguments, linking them through an underlying organizing idea that suggests what is essential — what consequences and values are at stake. We do not see the frame directly, but infer its presence by its characteristic expressions and language.
The idea helps us understand why changing our political situation does not rest on just the media presenting the facts better or people paying better attention. Some progressives threw up their hands in dismay and frustration when polls showed that most Bush voters believed that there was a connection between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. The "facts" were clear that no connection had been found. If these voters didn't know this it was because either the media had failed in its responsibility to inform them, or they were too lazy and inattentive to take it in.
But suppose one frames the world as a dangerous place in which the forces of evil — a hydra-headed monster labeled "terrorism" — confront the forces of good. This frame depicts Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda as two heads of the same monster. In this frame, whether or not there were actual meetings by agents or other forms of communication between them is nit picking and irrelevant.
People carry around multiple frames in their heads. We don't simply have one way of framing an issue or an event. Lakoff emphasizes two meta-frames or cultural themes operating in the United States, embodied in two competing family metaphors: the Strict Father vs. the Nurturant Parent. He sees these meta-frames as underlying, respectively, conservative and liberal thought more generally. But Lakoff is wise enough to recognize that we don't carry around just one of these in our heads but both of them. One may be much more easily triggered and habitually used but the other is also part of our cultural heritage and can be triggered and used as well, given the appropriate cues.
In a framing contest, such as between liberals supporting gay civil unions and conservatives opposing gay marriage, a successful framing strategy involves the ability to enter into the worldview of one's adversaries. Lakoff does not demonize conservatives but makes a successful effort to enter into their way of thinking. In doing so, he illustrates a useful rule of thumb: To reframe a message effectively, you should be able to describe a frame that you disagree with so that its advocates would say, "Yes, this is what I believe."
The Problem with Strict Fathers and Nurturant Parents
As critics have pointed out, part of Lakoff's appeal is the promise of a silver bullet through which liberals and progressives can rebuild their majority support if only they will follow the formula. Progressive values such as fairness, inclusiveness, empathy, and community have broad cultural appeal, Lakoff reminds us. Reframing political debate to focus on those values, then, is the roadmap to regaining power.
Well, yes and no. The family metaphor seems to work better as a metaframe for conservative thinkers than it does for progressives. But even here, there are fissures between conservatives who find it resonant and those who fear Big Brother rather than embracing Strict Father when thinking about the role of government. Some libertarian conservatives make common cause with liberals who don't like the government telling them what they can read or buy. It isn't very clear how the Strict Father model articulates with a free market meta-frame that underlies conservative support for the privatization of Social Security, for example. Strict fathers don't have invisible hands.
Furthermore, the nurturant parent embodied in the New Deal — America's soft version of the European style welfare state dating to the 1930s that brought us Social Security and federal labor regulation — resonates differently between those who call themselves liberals versus those who call themselves progressives. The nurturant parent metaphor doesn't really have a lot of resonance for people who see themselves on a quest for social justice. Nor is mutuality — a progressive goal or value — quite the same as nurturance. Locking arms and singing "We shall overcome" is about self-help and interdependence, about brotherhood and sisterhood, not parents.
Family metaphors are not the most likely frames for most people to use on foreign policy issues. Lakoff has little to say about another resonant meta-frame: The world is a dangerous place. Much has been written about the cultural roots of such a frame in supporting the Cold War and the nuclear arms race. One can substitute "terrorism" for "communism" and the same underlying frame remains serviceable. The superhero who rescues the innocents from unprovoked attacks by evil forces in children's cartoons isn't exactly a strict father or nurturant parent but a benevolent outsider who protects the whole family from outside threats. What to do about Osama and Saddam is not really about tough-love versus cocounseling.
What Lakoff Obscures
Like any frame, Lakoff's framing of contemporary American politics highlights some things and obscures others. Lakoff directs our attention to the message but he shifts attention away from the groups, political parties, governments and other carriers of those messages, and the complicated, uneven playing field on which they compete. Social movements and the advocacy groups they spawn successfully challenge official or dominant frames frequently. They compete on a playing field in which inequalities in power and resources play a major role in determining whether they succeed. Nevertheless, some movements were dramatically successful against long odds in reframing the terms of political debate and it behooves those engaged in reframing efforts to analyze their experience.
In failing to embed framing guides in this broader movement-building context, Lakoff asks us to ignore not only the elephant in the room but also the moles, ferrets, chipmunks, occasional black panthers, raging bulls and wild boars, and the more domesticated donkeys and carrier pigeons. There is a whole menagerie out there that Lakoff is not thinking about. And it is this multi-faceted complexity that the Christian Right has, at times, effectively traversed.
To succeed, challengers need to integrate their framing strategies with broader movement- building strategies. This means building and sustaining the carriers of these frames in various ways — for example, by helping groups figure out how to gain access where blocked, and how to strengthen their ability to collaborate better with groups sharing similar goals. Framing contests are about a lot more than staying on message.
There is an irony here because Lakoff, to his credit, has been spending a lot of his time over the past several years talking to many of the "carriers," convincing the political groups of the importance of framing. The danger here is that the focus on message, divorced from movement-building, reduces framing strategy to a matter of pitching metaphors for electoral campaigns and policy debates, or perhaps contracting with think tanks like the Lakoff's own Rockridge Institute to find the right hot buttons.
By focusing entirely on the content of the message, while ignoring the frame carriers and the playing field, Lakoff falls into the pitfalls of the social marketing model. Without a strategy to build a base or constituency, and without democratic media reform, framing can become simply a more sophisticated but still ungrounded variation on the belief that you just need to communicate the right ideas – i.e. "the truth will set you free."
To counter the assumption that the frame will set us free, framing strategies must not just address the content of the message or the style of debate but attend to base building and challenge the contours of the non-level playing field in which the contest is carried on.
The one intermediary that Lakoff recognizes is the think-tank that helps its political allies to shape their message through its clever marketing skills. He rightly appreciates the skill of conservative social marketers ensconced in their wellfunded think tanks like the Heritage Foundation or American Enterprise Institute. But he has nothing to say about the rise of a relevant social movement, the Christian Right, in the late 1970s. The Christian Right's infrastructure supported conservative frames in ways that went far beyond finding better ways of marketing their message. Political scientist Duane Oldfield describes how evangelicals built movement- oriented broadcast media and active local congregations to grow in political significance. By the late 1980s, the influence of the movement was directed through the Republican Party.
Christian Right organizations did a lot of movement-building work to further the success of their preferred frame but often remained behind the scenes. On the abortion issue, for example, they rarely speak to the media directly but support broader coalitions such as the National Right to Life Committee as spokespersons for their movement's frame.
People-driven framing
Lakoff's narrowness leads him to such astounding claims as the one he makes in his introduction to Don't Think of an Elephant!: "There is only one progressive think tank engaged in a major reframing exercise: the Rockridge Institute." Perhaps it is tunnel vision stemming from Lakoff's roots in cognitive psychology that blinds him to the civil rights movement's "major reframing" of Black American experience, the feminist movement's "major reframing" of women's experience, as well as the major reframing of gay, lesbian and transgendered experience, the reframing of labor (social unionism) and the major reframing of nuclear power.
The list of successful reframing efforts would be incomplete without mention of the Black feminist movement, that reframed the feminist reframing, and the environmental justice movement that reframed environmental organizing. In other words, not only are broad-based social movements critical to reframing efforts, but such movements ensure that reframing remains an active process of engagement with shifting political realities.
Nor does Lakoff acknowledge the rise of a media reform movement, whose participants engage in a variety of media critique, alternative and oppositional media, and media reform efforts. While we strongly agree with Lakoff that progressive framing efforts have lacked adequate resources, hundreds of organizations operating at the national, regional and local level have included reframing in their efforts to build progressive movements.
The central lessons to be learned from Lakoff's omission is that building an effective framing strategy is not merely about more effective marketing expressed through catchy symbols that tap an emotional hot button and trigger the desired response. The problem isn't that it doesn't work — in the short run, it may — but that its singular focus on finesse in individual framing undermines the goal of increasing citizens' sense that they can collectively change things. By treating potential participants as individuals whose citizenship involves voting and perhaps conveying their personal opinion to key decision-makers, citizens as collective actors are moved off of the screen.
In contrast, a participatory approach to promoting progressive frames looks at the failings of mass media with an eye on supporting a group's strength in building longterm, on-going relationships with journalists. Building these working relationships are themselves opportunities for framing contests that, when successful, further the prominence of one's preferred frame in the competitive media field.
An essential guide for progressives must address these issues as well as how framing strategies can draw out the latent sense of agency that people already carry around with them. In sum, a participatory communication model involves developing an ongoing capability of people to act collectively in framing contests. One doesn't transform people who feel individually powerless into a group with a sense of collective efficacy by pushing hot buttons. Indeed, one doesn't transform people at all. People transform themselves through movement building — the work of reflection, critique, dialog, relation building and infrastructure building that synergistically constitute a "major reframing effort."
Conclusion
(warning! serious metaphor alert! - Queenie)
Framing matters but it is not the only thing that matters. There is a danger of "quick fix" politics — the sexy frame as the new hot button. Just as conservatives worked slowly and patiently for three decades, progressives need to start small and build big, to win back our base of support. Framing work is critical to this process, but framing work itself must be framed in the context of movement building.
Integrating framing and other forms of movement building is necessary if the frame carriers are going to be able to compete successfully against the carriers of official frames with lots of resources and organization behind them. This involves an explicit recognition of power inequalities and how to challenge them and a recognition of citizens as potential collective actors, not just individual ones. Think tanks that want to help progressives are an important component of creating a supportive infrastructure but they will fail if they adopt a social marketing model that ignores the nature of the playing field and focuses only on the message.
There is a story circulating on the Internet, attributed to Jim France of the Pavilion Hotel Group in Bangkok. Elephant rides were one of the main attractions at a resort hotel in Phuket. About twenty minutes before the first wave of the tsunami hit, the nine elephants became extremely agitated and unruly. They broke out of their confinement, climbed a nearby hill, and started bellowing. Many people followed them up the hill before the waves hit.
After the waves had subsided, the elephants went down the hill as a group and started picking up children with their trunks and running them back up the hill. After the children were taken care of, the elephants started helping the adults. According to the account, they rescued 42 people. They wouldn't let their handlers mount them until the job was done.
To make the metaphor fit our message, let's add a detail that didn't actually happen. Let's imagine that in carrying out their rescue mission, the elephants confronted a group of government soldiers assembled to enforce a law against elephants acting as a pack. And imagine further that these nine elephants just ran right by the soldiers, brushing them aside to complete their mission.
Now there are some elephants to think about.
William A. Gamson is a Professor of Sociology at Boston College, where is codirects the Media Research and Action Project (MRAP) with Charlotte Ryan. He is the author of many books and articles on political discourse and social movements, including Talking Politics and is a past president of the American Sociological Association. Charlotte Ryan is the author of Prime Time Activism: Media Strategies for Grass Roots Organizing and an associate research professor in sociology at Boston College.
This essay is the product of a collaborative process involving the MRAP (Movement/ Media Research and Action Project) seminar including Matt Williams, Jeff Langstraat, Vered Malka, Michelle Gawerc, Johanna Pabst, and Jesse Kirdahy-Scalia.
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
What the hell is framing about, if it's not about putting in windows?
Here in political science major-land, where Queenie is currently living and working, it’s all about framing. Queenie had heard of framing before. It was one of the things that people used to have meetings about when she was younger, back across the ocean in intuitive politics-land, where she used to live and work.
As far as I can recall, political debate would be largely based on ‘stuff I heard from my constituents’ or ‘shenanigans that the other lot got caught doing’ terms, until such time as an election loomed. Then, after a bit of fund-raising and strong-arming of the labour movement in return for three pages of the election platform, large sums of money would be handed over to people who had formerly worked for the party, but had gone on to complete a DCU Masters in media or politics of some sort. Armed with this Masters, and the je ne sais quoi of having been outside politics for a while, these people would talk at length about ‘framing’ the debate. Everyone would nod intelligently, think and talk a lot about framing, and vast sums of money would be spent on said framing of message.
Everyone did it. The people that did it best won the election. They were generally the people with enough money to get the lads over from the States, where you can do a whoppingly expensive BA, MA and PhD from Stamford in framing.
That was the accepted wisdom.
I never let on I didn’t have a clue what they were talking about. I can be terribly literal-minded sometimes, so I used to just try and see everyone’s policies in terms of window frames.
Ours were always plain, white sash windows with no doo-dahs and no anti-burgler devices.
A certain type of person goes for that kind of frame, but most people like a bit of decoration I found.
Here, you don’t get a job in politics unless you’ve written a thesis on framing. Or you’re Queenie. Or your mam was a big head in the party. Or you’re in the labour movement. Or whatever.
Anyways, the antecedents of the framers don’t matter. An election is looming.
So I’d better get my toolkit together.
I assume the other lot are at it too. They’re stealing our frame, as far as I know. And I suspect they’re redecorating it in greenbacks. Eighty four million of them in the last seven weeks. And a smell of a tax cut. To make it more palatable.
That's a pretty effective way of doing it, if I remember rightly.
That’s another blog post – the art of waving a tax cut in front of a hungry, gullible audience. Right-wing parties are great at it. Left wing parties get accused of immaturity when they try it. Why is that?
But back to my original question. What the hell is framing about when it’s not about putting in windows?
I went searching. This is from some US college Democrat site:
As any high school debater knows, the proposition of a debate is framed as an attack upon the status quo: “Resolved, that the blah blah should yadda yadda the zamma zamma.
This proposition advocates a change in the status quo—the current state of affairs, the way things are. The burden of proof is upon the affirmative who argues for this change. In the stock issues case, the affirmative asserts the need for a change, presents a plan for a change, and establishes the benefits of the change produced by that plan. And the affirmative’s responsibility is to define the terms of the proposition—which also is its privilege, as it can frame the definitions as it wishes.
The negative is charged with defending the status quo from the affirmative’s attack. And other than in exceptional cases, the negative is obligated to accept the affirmative’s definitions.
Those are the rules of the game—at least in “real” debate.
Okay now Queenie knows how to do the actual framing, which is what she does for a living anyway:
Identify problem, (excoriate government), outline solution (cost it, which is more than they ever do), cast dispersions on government for not thinking of it first, persuade people it’s doable.
That’s the arguing. Queenie can do that. Apart from the persuading. That can be tricky.
But what’s the frame they’re talking about like I’m supposed to know?
Back to Basics
Is that a frame?
Merriam-Webster Online definition:
To frame: to construct by fitting and uniting the parts of the skeleton of (a structure)2 a : PLAN, CONTRIVE <framed a new method of achieving their purpose> b : SHAPE, CONSTRUCT c : to give expression to : FORMULATE d : to draw up (as a document)3 a : to devise falsely (as a criminal charge) b : to contrive the evidence against (an innocent person) so that a verdict of guilty is assured c : FIX 7b4 : to fit or adjust especially to something or for an end : ARRANGE
So it could be to plan, to contrive, to shape or construct, to formulate or to arrange (I’m going to assume it’s not fix). Okay, now we’re getting places.
Let’s have a look at an example.
Here’s another use of the word, this time from one of those dreadfully dreary American political blogs:
As a result, 'impeach the President' could very well be the frame that engulfs both the White House and the American public in the week to come.
A frame that engulfs.
Wow.
A frame that’s a noun.
That’s no use. Yet.
Let’s find another example.
Here’s one - a speech made by Holley Ulbrich, from South Caroline, about framing the property tax debate. She says:
It’s all about framing…(yes, we knew that Holley). Yes we need (to know the arguments and the figures, yadda yadda). But more than that, we need to acknowledge that beyond the reasoned debate there are emotions and values and ways of looking at the world.
Oookaaaay…. Queenie can grasp that. It’s called other people’s points of view. All part of democracy.
Holley continues:
Unless we can refocus that framework (of policy makers), we aren’t going to have any impact on public policy.
I’m paraphrasing Holley here because I’m working off a pdf file.
Holley continues some more:
Framing is grounded in values.
I didn’t know that. But when you think about it, other people’s point of view is grounded in their values. So yeah, I can go with that.
The second essential part of the framing challenge is to define the problem in such a way that you generate recognition, empathy and concern among voters.
I wonder is this in any way related to the time-honoured political tactic of scaring the fuck out of the poor bastards? As in the British Tories and crime/ immigrants/ trade unions.
Possibly it’s a framing style. Gothic framing possibly, with writhing serpents devouring hapless sinners on the latticework.
Holley goes on to frame her issue over about five pages. She lost me after page one, but I get the sense that she’s anti-business property tax. She continues her lesson eventually, though:
Before we can get our legislators to sing to our tune, however, we need to listen in on the other song.
The other song being the opposition. She goes on to excoriate the opposition as a bunch of red-neck libertarian free-loaders, who attack any attempt by ‘big government’ to collect revenue, before saying:
Once you look through that frame, the problem definition and their policy recommendations make sense.
Well of course, Holley, go to the top of the class. If you put yourself in someone’s shoes and look through their eyes, things always make sense.
So if we go back to Marriam-Webster, framing in the political sense is ‘shaping, constructing’, and to a lesser extent, ‘arranging’.
Okay, I have a handle on it now.
Now that I have a handle on it, no small achievement for literal-girl, here’s another question. How do you find your audience, and put yourself in their shoes (other than in the time-consuming manner of ‘listening to your constituents’), in order to frame the debate in a way that should get them to recognise, empathise and show concern about the issue?
I mean, you can’t go look at everyone else’s windows and build a matching set now can you?
And how do you get people who have been taught since birth to be individuals to join with you in a massive ‘framing’ love in?
I went back to Holley with bated breath.
Holley doesn’t get that far.
Damn damn, I was getting places.
She does make an interesting comment about values, though. She says that there are six values that come up over and over and over again in polling (which is of course the answer to the first of my questions). They are:
Freedom, honesty, fairness/ justice, loyalty/ community, compassion, and tolerance.
That’s what people say when asked.
When asked.
Nobody asks you what you’re voting for, though. At least not in the ballot box.
You’re all alone in there.
Thinking about what kind of windows you’d like to put in your dream home.
So, to get them to have a big framing love in, you gotta give them a crack at their dream home.
That would be pretty pricey wouldn't it.
yeah.
As far as I can recall, political debate would be largely based on ‘stuff I heard from my constituents’ or ‘shenanigans that the other lot got caught doing’ terms, until such time as an election loomed. Then, after a bit of fund-raising and strong-arming of the labour movement in return for three pages of the election platform, large sums of money would be handed over to people who had formerly worked for the party, but had gone on to complete a DCU Masters in media or politics of some sort. Armed with this Masters, and the je ne sais quoi of having been outside politics for a while, these people would talk at length about ‘framing’ the debate. Everyone would nod intelligently, think and talk a lot about framing, and vast sums of money would be spent on said framing of message.
Everyone did it. The people that did it best won the election. They were generally the people with enough money to get the lads over from the States, where you can do a whoppingly expensive BA, MA and PhD from Stamford in framing.
That was the accepted wisdom.
I never let on I didn’t have a clue what they were talking about. I can be terribly literal-minded sometimes, so I used to just try and see everyone’s policies in terms of window frames.
Ours were always plain, white sash windows with no doo-dahs and no anti-burgler devices.
A certain type of person goes for that kind of frame, but most people like a bit of decoration I found.
Here, you don’t get a job in politics unless you’ve written a thesis on framing. Or you’re Queenie. Or your mam was a big head in the party. Or you’re in the labour movement. Or whatever.
Anyways, the antecedents of the framers don’t matter. An election is looming.
So I’d better get my toolkit together.
I assume the other lot are at it too. They’re stealing our frame, as far as I know. And I suspect they’re redecorating it in greenbacks. Eighty four million of them in the last seven weeks. And a smell of a tax cut. To make it more palatable.
That's a pretty effective way of doing it, if I remember rightly.
That’s another blog post – the art of waving a tax cut in front of a hungry, gullible audience. Right-wing parties are great at it. Left wing parties get accused of immaturity when they try it. Why is that?
But back to my original question. What the hell is framing about when it’s not about putting in windows?
I went searching. This is from some US college Democrat site:
As any high school debater knows, the proposition of a debate is framed as an attack upon the status quo: “Resolved, that the blah blah should yadda yadda the zamma zamma.
This proposition advocates a change in the status quo—the current state of affairs, the way things are. The burden of proof is upon the affirmative who argues for this change. In the stock issues case, the affirmative asserts the need for a change, presents a plan for a change, and establishes the benefits of the change produced by that plan. And the affirmative’s responsibility is to define the terms of the proposition—which also is its privilege, as it can frame the definitions as it wishes.
The negative is charged with defending the status quo from the affirmative’s attack. And other than in exceptional cases, the negative is obligated to accept the affirmative’s definitions.
Those are the rules of the game—at least in “real” debate.
Okay now Queenie knows how to do the actual framing, which is what she does for a living anyway:
Identify problem, (excoriate government), outline solution (cost it, which is more than they ever do), cast dispersions on government for not thinking of it first, persuade people it’s doable.
That’s the arguing. Queenie can do that. Apart from the persuading. That can be tricky.
But what’s the frame they’re talking about like I’m supposed to know?
Back to Basics
Is that a frame?
Merriam-Webster Online definition:
To frame: to construct by fitting and uniting the parts of the skeleton of (a structure)2 a : PLAN, CONTRIVE <framed a new method of achieving their purpose> b : SHAPE, CONSTRUCT c : to give expression to : FORMULATE d : to draw up (as a document)3 a : to devise falsely (as a criminal charge) b : to contrive the evidence against (an innocent person) so that a verdict of guilty is assured c : FIX 7b4 : to fit or adjust especially to something or for an end : ARRANGE
So it could be to plan, to contrive, to shape or construct, to formulate or to arrange (I’m going to assume it’s not fix). Okay, now we’re getting places.
Let’s have a look at an example.
Here’s another use of the word, this time from one of those dreadfully dreary American political blogs:
As a result, 'impeach the President' could very well be the frame that engulfs both the White House and the American public in the week to come.
A frame that engulfs.
Wow.
A frame that’s a noun.
That’s no use. Yet.
Let’s find another example.
Here’s one - a speech made by Holley Ulbrich, from South Caroline, about framing the property tax debate. She says:
It’s all about framing…(yes, we knew that Holley). Yes we need (to know the arguments and the figures, yadda yadda). But more than that, we need to acknowledge that beyond the reasoned debate there are emotions and values and ways of looking at the world.
Oookaaaay…. Queenie can grasp that. It’s called other people’s points of view. All part of democracy.
Holley continues:
Unless we can refocus that framework (of policy makers), we aren’t going to have any impact on public policy.
I’m paraphrasing Holley here because I’m working off a pdf file.
Holley continues some more:
Framing is grounded in values.
I didn’t know that. But when you think about it, other people’s point of view is grounded in their values. So yeah, I can go with that.
The second essential part of the framing challenge is to define the problem in such a way that you generate recognition, empathy and concern among voters.
I wonder is this in any way related to the time-honoured political tactic of scaring the fuck out of the poor bastards? As in the British Tories and crime/ immigrants/ trade unions.
Possibly it’s a framing style. Gothic framing possibly, with writhing serpents devouring hapless sinners on the latticework.
Holley goes on to frame her issue over about five pages. She lost me after page one, but I get the sense that she’s anti-business property tax. She continues her lesson eventually, though:
Before we can get our legislators to sing to our tune, however, we need to listen in on the other song.
The other song being the opposition. She goes on to excoriate the opposition as a bunch of red-neck libertarian free-loaders, who attack any attempt by ‘big government’ to collect revenue, before saying:
Once you look through that frame, the problem definition and their policy recommendations make sense.
Well of course, Holley, go to the top of the class. If you put yourself in someone’s shoes and look through their eyes, things always make sense.
So if we go back to Marriam-Webster, framing in the political sense is ‘shaping, constructing’, and to a lesser extent, ‘arranging’.
Okay, I have a handle on it now.
Now that I have a handle on it, no small achievement for literal-girl, here’s another question. How do you find your audience, and put yourself in their shoes (other than in the time-consuming manner of ‘listening to your constituents’), in order to frame the debate in a way that should get them to recognise, empathise and show concern about the issue?
I mean, you can’t go look at everyone else’s windows and build a matching set now can you?
And how do you get people who have been taught since birth to be individuals to join with you in a massive ‘framing’ love in?
I went back to Holley with bated breath.
Holley doesn’t get that far.
Damn damn, I was getting places.
She does make an interesting comment about values, though. She says that there are six values that come up over and over and over again in polling (which is of course the answer to the first of my questions). They are:
Freedom, honesty, fairness/ justice, loyalty/ community, compassion, and tolerance.
That’s what people say when asked.
When asked.
Nobody asks you what you’re voting for, though. At least not in the ballot box.
You’re all alone in there.
Thinking about what kind of windows you’d like to put in your dream home.
So, to get them to have a big framing love in, you gotta give them a crack at their dream home.
That would be pretty pricey wouldn't it.
yeah.
The small beauties of site meters
I love my site meter. Not because it tells me how many people visit my blog, but because it tells me why. And from where.
Tonight I got hits from Little Rock, Arkansas, and Sunnyvale, California, as well as Dublin, Winnipeg and Nova Scotia.
I get a lot of hits from Sunnyvale. Don’t know why. Don’t know anyone there.
I keep track of people who are out of contact – our man in Belgium who left with a back pack and through the site meter became our man in Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and is now our man in New Zealand. Soon to be our man in New York and then our man in Halifax.
People in Nova Scotia. People in Ireland.
And some of the searches are so strange.
Today, someone Yahooed ‘crabulate’ and my blog was the only site that came up. So someone else on the planet likes the sound of that word and thinks it should be a real word.
Today, someone else searched for ‘prices liquor store Digby Nova Scotia’ and my blog came up. Before that of the liquor store.
Score.
I get some great comments too. Recently, Jeff Finlay commented on my use of Fergus Finlay in a simile (more vindicated than Albert Reynolds, more right than Fergus Finlay), whilst admitting that he hadn’t the faintest idea what my post was about. Or telling me why he was googling Fergus.
The woman who owns my favourite shoe shop in Ireland read my electronic paeon to her stock when she googled her shop's name, and used the comment box to ask whether she could quote me in her advertisements.
I said yes. I'm sure I'll get discount some day.
And then there are the regular commenters, and the regular readers who don’t know the regular commenters, but feel like they do after a year of reading their comments.
It’s all bringing us electronic elders closer together.
Tonight I got hits from Little Rock, Arkansas, and Sunnyvale, California, as well as Dublin, Winnipeg and Nova Scotia.
I get a lot of hits from Sunnyvale. Don’t know why. Don’t know anyone there.
I keep track of people who are out of contact – our man in Belgium who left with a back pack and through the site meter became our man in Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and is now our man in New Zealand. Soon to be our man in New York and then our man in Halifax.
People in Nova Scotia. People in Ireland.
And some of the searches are so strange.
Today, someone Yahooed ‘crabulate’ and my blog was the only site that came up. So someone else on the planet likes the sound of that word and thinks it should be a real word.
Today, someone else searched for ‘prices liquor store Digby Nova Scotia’ and my blog came up. Before that of the liquor store.
Score.
I get some great comments too. Recently, Jeff Finlay commented on my use of Fergus Finlay in a simile (more vindicated than Albert Reynolds, more right than Fergus Finlay), whilst admitting that he hadn’t the faintest idea what my post was about. Or telling me why he was googling Fergus.
The woman who owns my favourite shoe shop in Ireland read my electronic paeon to her stock when she googled her shop's name, and used the comment box to ask whether she could quote me in her advertisements.
I said yes. I'm sure I'll get discount some day.
And then there are the regular commenters, and the regular readers who don’t know the regular commenters, but feel like they do after a year of reading their comments.
It’s all bringing us electronic elders closer together.
Sunday, April 23, 2006
Another meme from Myles' blog
Another meme borrowed from Myles’ blog. Go to Wikipedia, type in your birthday, not including the year, and check out what happened on that day, who was born and what holidays fall on it. Pick three of each.
Cool.
Events
Holidays and observances
Cool.
Events
- 1099 - First Crusade: 15,000 starving Christian soldiers march in religious procession around Jerusalem as its Muslim defenders mock them.
- 1892 - St. John's, Newfoundland was devastated in the Great Fire of 1892.
- 1947 - Reports are broadcast that a UFO has crash landed in Roswell, New Mexico.
- 1838 - Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin, German inventor (d. 1917)
- 1919 - Walter Scheel, German politician
- 1958 - Kevin Bacon, American actor
Holidays and observances
The Queen's Birthday
I read somewhere the other day that they did experiments on fish one time, where they got the fish drunk, and then taught them how to swim through a maze. The fish could never remember how to do it again when they were sober. Anytime they were taken out for experimentation purposes, however, they could always perform.
I thought that was hilarious.
I use commas too much. I need to figure commas out sometime.
I wonder did Declan Lynch put that in his book about how we are all immature. And that’s why we drink.
The fish thing, I mean.
I’m listening to John Connolly’s Compilation ©
I’m not going to type the playlist out again.
I feel like I’m in Ireland.
In a certain sense. I can feel its presence again. That’s really important to me, but it irritates the shit out of me at the same time.
I saw Cecilia Ahern’s book in the airport the other day. I pointed it out to Himself. And said she was the daughter of the Irish Prime Minister. And then we turned away to go to the gate but just as we did a woman who had been listening to us stepped over and took the book up. Turned it over and looked at the photograph. And then she looked at me.
They’re very suspicious over here. They don’t like change. And now they have to make a decision. It should be interesting.
I only used one comma in all that. I think it works.
The Compilation © is very slow. And quiet. I would never choose this kind of music but I always enjoy it when it is handed to me.
The fish are very active again all of a sudden. I wonder why. They have a really short biorhythm. It happens several times a day as far as I can make out. That’s probably why they don’t get bored.
You can tell I’m really busy these days.
The scary thing is, I feel really busy. I don’t think I could ever ramp back up to Queenie pre-Canada speed. And I don’t want to. I just worry that some day I might want to and then it will be too late.
I think I might be immature. I should give up whatever it is I’m addicted to and write a book about it, shouldn’t I.
Nah.
The journey is too important to stop for that long.
Besides, I still don’t know what it is.
I just went back and redid the commas and I think it works now.
Anyways, maybe it’s not about me. Maybe it’s about someone else.
But everyone always says that is wrong.
I don’t know. It is. But why should I be expected to cure myself. By myself. Why do some people have to travel alone? And why do some people have to travel with someone, or anyone, or everyone? Why do they get to be cured by society?
I bet that’s what they ask. Those kids like Joey that we leave behind in our scramble for whatever it is we think will get us on tv. Or the radio. Or in a book. Or in a newspaper.
Blog. Podcast. My Place.
It’s fucking relentless.
I’m sitting in a room in Canada. Getting ready for work in the morning. And I’m listening to a Podcast from the Guardian in London. The original of which I downloaded in work once and brought home.
And now the fucking thing is sending me weekly instalments.
HOW THE FUCK DOES IT DO THAT?
THIS IS STARTING TO GET SCARY NOW.
And these guys, who work in the same company as my brother, are sitting around talking about Tony Prince of Darkness O’Reilly and Denis Fucking Twat O’Brien, who are apparently doing a typical Irish feud stunt, to get in the fucking papers, which they own, for Chrissakes, and the paper they’re fighting over is the Independent, which nobody buys anymore because it’s full of boring Trots,
SO WHO GIVES A SHIT?
The Guardian evidently.
Otherwise it wouldn’t be sending me owls about it.
Newspapers are dying. They’re closing down the pulp mills here, because they still make newsprint when they should be making digital photo paper.
I am devastated. They’re starting to cut back on energy, and they’re starting by taking away all the biodegradable things. So all that will be left is the stuff from China.
Why are we doing this? Why? If someone could give me a good enough assurance that they had a plan for it, maybe I could stop thinking about it. But nobody can. It’s too big for one person or one company to handle. Or even one country.
It’s landmass against landmass now dudes, and I’m on a big island. Well, the biggest island in the world when the polar icecaps melt.
And we’ll be in charge of the northern border.
It will be elemental.
It will be cold.
We will get video podcasts from Hollywood, where it is always warm, and people are always happy. Because we are helping them to survive.
Fuck them. I want newspapers.
And I have all the trees.
We’ll be fighting over trees eventually, I suppose. And we’ll all have to wear gas masks.
This is what I think about when I am alone by the way.
It’s scary isn’t it.
What will Ireland be doing?
Surviving of course. Bleeding some colonial power dry no doubt, the only question is which one.
It’s so different over here. There’s a real sense of duty with regard to the rest of the world. Which the government manipulates in order to be the yankee slut. Which annoys the crap out of the average Canadian. And there's lots of them dying out in Afghanistan. They get very little coverage in Ireland or the UK. And yet we all celebrated the Queen’s birthday over the last two days. A Nova Scotian couple was invited over to the party and all the ceremonies were on the news.
They said that she had made a bold statement about the environment recently. I thought that was very interesting. Apparently, she took Tony Blair aside at one of their meetings, so the courtiers wouldn’t leak it to the press, and told him to be careful of George Bush.
I’d love to have seen his face when she did that.
I wonder how I found out.
I should post this.
I thought that was hilarious.
I use commas too much. I need to figure commas out sometime.
I wonder did Declan Lynch put that in his book about how we are all immature. And that’s why we drink.
The fish thing, I mean.
I’m listening to John Connolly’s Compilation ©
I’m not going to type the playlist out again.
I feel like I’m in Ireland.
In a certain sense. I can feel its presence again. That’s really important to me, but it irritates the shit out of me at the same time.
I saw Cecilia Ahern’s book in the airport the other day. I pointed it out to Himself. And said she was the daughter of the Irish Prime Minister. And then we turned away to go to the gate but just as we did a woman who had been listening to us stepped over and took the book up. Turned it over and looked at the photograph. And then she looked at me.
They’re very suspicious over here. They don’t like change. And now they have to make a decision. It should be interesting.
I only used one comma in all that. I think it works.
The Compilation © is very slow. And quiet. I would never choose this kind of music but I always enjoy it when it is handed to me.
The fish are very active again all of a sudden. I wonder why. They have a really short biorhythm. It happens several times a day as far as I can make out. That’s probably why they don’t get bored.
You can tell I’m really busy these days.
The scary thing is, I feel really busy. I don’t think I could ever ramp back up to Queenie pre-Canada speed. And I don’t want to. I just worry that some day I might want to and then it will be too late.
I think I might be immature. I should give up whatever it is I’m addicted to and write a book about it, shouldn’t I.
Nah.
The journey is too important to stop for that long.
Besides, I still don’t know what it is.
I just went back and redid the commas and I think it works now.
Anyways, maybe it’s not about me. Maybe it’s about someone else.
But everyone always says that is wrong.
I don’t know. It is. But why should I be expected to cure myself. By myself. Why do some people have to travel alone? And why do some people have to travel with someone, or anyone, or everyone? Why do they get to be cured by society?
I bet that’s what they ask. Those kids like Joey that we leave behind in our scramble for whatever it is we think will get us on tv. Or the radio. Or in a book. Or in a newspaper.
Blog. Podcast. My Place.
It’s fucking relentless.
I’m sitting in a room in Canada. Getting ready for work in the morning. And I’m listening to a Podcast from the Guardian in London. The original of which I downloaded in work once and brought home.
And now the fucking thing is sending me weekly instalments.
HOW THE FUCK DOES IT DO THAT?
THIS IS STARTING TO GET SCARY NOW.
And these guys, who work in the same company as my brother, are sitting around talking about Tony Prince of Darkness O’Reilly and Denis Fucking Twat O’Brien, who are apparently doing a typical Irish feud stunt, to get in the fucking papers, which they own, for Chrissakes, and the paper they’re fighting over is the Independent, which nobody buys anymore because it’s full of boring Trots,
SO WHO GIVES A SHIT?
The Guardian evidently.
Otherwise it wouldn’t be sending me owls about it.
Newspapers are dying. They’re closing down the pulp mills here, because they still make newsprint when they should be making digital photo paper.
I am devastated. They’re starting to cut back on energy, and they’re starting by taking away all the biodegradable things. So all that will be left is the stuff from China.
Why are we doing this? Why? If someone could give me a good enough assurance that they had a plan for it, maybe I could stop thinking about it. But nobody can. It’s too big for one person or one company to handle. Or even one country.
It’s landmass against landmass now dudes, and I’m on a big island. Well, the biggest island in the world when the polar icecaps melt.
And we’ll be in charge of the northern border.
It will be elemental.
It will be cold.
We will get video podcasts from Hollywood, where it is always warm, and people are always happy. Because we are helping them to survive.
Fuck them. I want newspapers.
And I have all the trees.
We’ll be fighting over trees eventually, I suppose. And we’ll all have to wear gas masks.
This is what I think about when I am alone by the way.
It’s scary isn’t it.
What will Ireland be doing?
Surviving of course. Bleeding some colonial power dry no doubt, the only question is which one.
It’s so different over here. There’s a real sense of duty with regard to the rest of the world. Which the government manipulates in order to be the yankee slut. Which annoys the crap out of the average Canadian. And there's lots of them dying out in Afghanistan. They get very little coverage in Ireland or the UK. And yet we all celebrated the Queen’s birthday over the last two days. A Nova Scotian couple was invited over to the party and all the ceremonies were on the news.
They said that she had made a bold statement about the environment recently. I thought that was very interesting. Apparently, she took Tony Blair aside at one of their meetings, so the courtiers wouldn’t leak it to the press, and told him to be careful of George Bush.
I’d love to have seen his face when she did that.
I wonder how I found out.
I should post this.
Saturday, April 22, 2006
Books, music and Joey
Saturday night. I’m sitting in my room with a beer. And Bob Dylan. Although I have iTunes on shuffle, so I had Bach a minute ago. I should do that thing Myles does and put the next ten on:
Bath Time: Orbital
It Started With A Kiss: Hot Chocolate
Airbag: Radiohead
Bonito Y Sabroso: Beny Moré
Portreath Harbour: Polygon Window
Mexican Wine: Fountains Of Wayne
Who Will Watch The Home Place: Laurie Lewis
Dog New Tricks: Garbage
Wwyhmb: Elliott Brood
Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Russian Roulette: Moving Hearts
Not too bad, I hope. I still haven’t gotten over the Anodyne comment in Franks. (too arcane for most people, not going to explain)
Hot Press journo writes book about being a drunk shock
Anyways, I’m here alone sipping beer and blogging and the Irish contingent in my life are in bed asleep or out drunk somewhere. The Queen Mother called a few minutes ago and told me that Declan whatsisname 'Lynch?' that used to write for Hot Press aeons ago and was a friend of Bazz’ (so he must be exceptional) has written a book about drinking.
You’re all immature, apparently. That’s why you all drink too much. Funny that, I always imagined it was because, like me, you liked the unpredictability of an evening laced with whatever your poison is. Or you needed to destress. Or celebrate. Or have a chat. Or whatever.
I don’t think it’s immaturity, myself. And I don’t think it’s a deep malaise. I think we do it because we get away with it and other people don’t because they don’t and that has nothing to do with maturity and everything to do with the power and culture of the state we live in.
So that’s my tuppence ha’penny on it.
A Father’s Affair, by Karel Van Loon
I just finished this. Great book, written by a Dutch journalist. More twists than a corkscrew as they say. It’s about a man who has a son by a partner who is now dead, who has just found out that he’s infertile and that consequently thirteen year old Bo is not his child.
So he goes nearly crazy trying to figure out who it is. His current partner who wants a baby, hence the fertility tests, was his former partner’s best friend so she tries to help him.
It's a bit D'oh! at the end, but really well written in the vein of a Dutch Nick Hornsby.
There’s a lot of drink involved, it being a Dutch novel and the Dutch being noted as a particularly immature lot.
Anyways, the book was a bestseller in the Netherlands a few years back and is worth a look.
Black Angel, by John Connolly
I always read John’s books even though they give me nightmares, as I went to university the same time as him and studied English with him. This one is another in the Charlie Parker series, although it ranges down as far as Mexico as well as sticking to its usual haunts in New England and the underbelly of New York.
He has a cd in the back, Voices from the Dark: A Soundtrack to the Novels of John Connolly. Compilation © John Connolly.
I shit you not.
I thought it would be wall to wall Korn and Marilyn Manson but of course it’s not because John is a normal bloke (for a bloke who writes novels about a violent PI who fights the devil on and off and who writes about flaying people too knowledgeably for my liking). Well he was when I knew him fourteen years ago.
FOURTEEN YEARS AGO.
Gulp.
Anyways, the track listing is:
Good Morning: Lullaby For The Working Class
Summer Dresses: Red House Painters
Hollow: Hem
Crawlaway: Lambchop
Ne T'en Fuis Pas: Kate Bush
Cattle and Cain: The Go-Betweens
Bordertown: The Walkabouts
Ponce de Leon Blues: Beachwood Sparks
Twist The Knife: Neko Case
Where Are You Now?: The More Shallows
November, 4AM: Pinetop Seven
Blinder By The Hour: The Triffids
Rock of the Lake: Radar Bros
Happiness: The Blue Nile
Good Friday evening with Joey
Speaking of Korn and Marilyn Manson, I never wrote about Easter. As the weather was terrible we spent most of it ensconced in the new room listening to the rain and not thinking about this week, but we did go down to the island on Thursday and spent Good Friday there.
Conversation in the car on the way to the island
Queenie: Is it like Ireland here, will the liquor stores be closed tomorrow?
Himself: No, no, they should be open.
Queenie: immaturely, she now realises… should we buy some booze now anyway, just in case, seeing as we’re passing the liquor store in Digby?
Himself: We’ll miss the ferry if we do.
Queenie: maturely, she now realises… oh, okay then, we’ll get some tomorrow.
So tomorrow dawned and the baby Jesus died on the cross, and after working out Palestinian time in order not to go to the off-license before he died (Canadian time was too late) we drove to the liquor store.
Which. Was. Closed.
It is a measure of my love and affection for Himself, not to mention my recently–acquired maturity, that I didn’t brain him on the spot.
It’s not that I’m an alcoholic, I’m not, it’s just Long Island without alcohol on Good Friday is like Dublin without alcohol on Good Friday.
Boring as hell. And frigging irritating that you have to plan whether or not you want to drink. Where's the spontaneity in that?
So we were forced to forage. We called round that evening to a fishing mate of Himself’s who has just bought a house. His story is another one altogether, which I won’t write about just now, preferring to tell you all about Joey his roomie.
Joey had beer, which he gave me for a packet of smokes, as he preferred whiskey anyways.
And smoke of course.
After working out that I was actually interested in hearing about his story, he told me that he’d just got out of Burnside (secure psychiatric unit in Halifax) after two and a half years for aggravated assault. With an axe, Himself told me the next day. He had been diagnosed with a rare form of schizophrenia while incarcerated and he’s on medication now, he told me.
But I still hear the voices. He smiled widely at me.
Oh yeah? I said.
Yeah, I can even hear them when I’m talking to you.
Right now?
Yup.
Don’t pay any attention to them, pet.
They think you’re nice.
That’s good, pet. Best not to listen to them tonight but.
Okay. Wanna go outside for a smoke?
Sure.
Out he bounded and we sat in the porch and talked.
Joey told me about one time he rambled through the island and found some mushrooms and picked them and ate them for a couple of hours as he wandered around and then realised he was off his head and ran and ran and eventually ended up in the graveyard and fell over. When he came too, he realised he was lying on a grave. WITH HIS OWN NAME ON THE HEADSTONE.
I agreed that that must have been a bit of a mindfuck.
He said he’d gotten addicted to crack and that was what fucked him up.
It’s scary the amount of crack and crystal meth these kids take in rural Nova Scotia, and the health authorities are claiming there’s no problem. Yet. But they know it’s coming. Crystal meth is sweeping the Prairie states at the moment.
He told me about his girlfriend. She’d left because she was scared. He didn’t blame her, but he wanted her back. Then he recited some of the poetry he’d written in Burnside. Which was not bad. A bit tortured, but pretty articulate. Nice metre to it as far as I remember. Eventually, we went back inside.
Himself was sitting watching his mate send rude emoticons to some girl he’s flirting with on MSN. He looked bored. Joey’s dog was sitting in front of him waiting for him to throw a plastic bone for him. Every now and again Himself started tapping his beer bottle with a coin. It drove the dog demented, made him jump up and down all over us.
I don’t know why.
His mate was playing some awful techno shite on his computer, so Joey asked me whether I’d like to see his cd collection.
There was a lot of Korn.
I mean a lot.
We agreed to play some Marilyn Manson instead. His landlord was still playing his techno, so we had about five minutes of noise war, with MM on one side and techno on the other before I yelled at one of them to stop.
Himself and myself looked at each other at that point. Made that universal couple sign for ‘let’s get the hell out of here’. Joey spotted it.
Where are you taking her? Down to the camp by Balancing Rock?
Big leer.
Himself said we’d just go home probably.
That’s where I’d take you. Another big leer.
Lovely pet. Bit old for you though, yeah?
He sort of shrugged, as if to say that didn’t bother him.
Outside we hopped in the car and drove down to the wharf to watch the full moon rise. It was orange and very round and very mystical. It was definitely affecting Joey, I said. Himself told me that Joey was drinking very heavily and that we should probably avoid him for a bit.
The next day someone told me that Joey used to be the best looking boy in the school, a great hockey player and all the girls after him. Now everyone’s wondering when he’ll attack someone again. What kind of a place exists where an obviously very sick boy such as Joey can be thrown out to fend for himself with a bit of medication and a look in every now and again.
That’s Nova Scotia for ya.
Bath Time: Orbital
It Started With A Kiss: Hot Chocolate
Airbag: Radiohead
Bonito Y Sabroso: Beny Moré
Portreath Harbour: Polygon Window
Mexican Wine: Fountains Of Wayne
Who Will Watch The Home Place: Laurie Lewis
Dog New Tricks: Garbage
Wwyhmb: Elliott Brood
Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Russian Roulette: Moving Hearts
Not too bad, I hope. I still haven’t gotten over the Anodyne comment in Franks. (too arcane for most people, not going to explain)
Hot Press journo writes book about being a drunk shock
Anyways, I’m here alone sipping beer and blogging and the Irish contingent in my life are in bed asleep or out drunk somewhere. The Queen Mother called a few minutes ago and told me that Declan whatsisname 'Lynch?' that used to write for Hot Press aeons ago and was a friend of Bazz’ (so he must be exceptional) has written a book about drinking.
You’re all immature, apparently. That’s why you all drink too much. Funny that, I always imagined it was because, like me, you liked the unpredictability of an evening laced with whatever your poison is. Or you needed to destress. Or celebrate. Or have a chat. Or whatever.
I don’t think it’s immaturity, myself. And I don’t think it’s a deep malaise. I think we do it because we get away with it and other people don’t because they don’t and that has nothing to do with maturity and everything to do with the power and culture of the state we live in.
So that’s my tuppence ha’penny on it.
A Father’s Affair, by Karel Van Loon
I just finished this. Great book, written by a Dutch journalist. More twists than a corkscrew as they say. It’s about a man who has a son by a partner who is now dead, who has just found out that he’s infertile and that consequently thirteen year old Bo is not his child.
So he goes nearly crazy trying to figure out who it is. His current partner who wants a baby, hence the fertility tests, was his former partner’s best friend so she tries to help him.
It's a bit D'oh! at the end, but really well written in the vein of a Dutch Nick Hornsby.
There’s a lot of drink involved, it being a Dutch novel and the Dutch being noted as a particularly immature lot.
Anyways, the book was a bestseller in the Netherlands a few years back and is worth a look.
Black Angel, by John Connolly
I always read John’s books even though they give me nightmares, as I went to university the same time as him and studied English with him. This one is another in the Charlie Parker series, although it ranges down as far as Mexico as well as sticking to its usual haunts in New England and the underbelly of New York.
He has a cd in the back, Voices from the Dark: A Soundtrack to the Novels of John Connolly. Compilation © John Connolly.
I shit you not.
I thought it would be wall to wall Korn and Marilyn Manson but of course it’s not because John is a normal bloke (for a bloke who writes novels about a violent PI who fights the devil on and off and who writes about flaying people too knowledgeably for my liking). Well he was when I knew him fourteen years ago.
FOURTEEN YEARS AGO.
Gulp.
Anyways, the track listing is:
Good Morning: Lullaby For The Working Class
Summer Dresses: Red House Painters
Hollow: Hem
Crawlaway: Lambchop
Ne T'en Fuis Pas: Kate Bush
Cattle and Cain: The Go-Betweens
Bordertown: The Walkabouts
Ponce de Leon Blues: Beachwood Sparks
Twist The Knife: Neko Case
Where Are You Now?: The More Shallows
November, 4AM: Pinetop Seven
Blinder By The Hour: The Triffids
Rock of the Lake: Radar Bros
Happiness: The Blue Nile
Good Friday evening with Joey
Speaking of Korn and Marilyn Manson, I never wrote about Easter. As the weather was terrible we spent most of it ensconced in the new room listening to the rain and not thinking about this week, but we did go down to the island on Thursday and spent Good Friday there.
Conversation in the car on the way to the island
Queenie: Is it like Ireland here, will the liquor stores be closed tomorrow?
Himself: No, no, they should be open.
Queenie: immaturely, she now realises… should we buy some booze now anyway, just in case, seeing as we’re passing the liquor store in Digby?
Himself: We’ll miss the ferry if we do.
Queenie: maturely, she now realises… oh, okay then, we’ll get some tomorrow.
So tomorrow dawned and the baby Jesus died on the cross, and after working out Palestinian time in order not to go to the off-license before he died (Canadian time was too late) we drove to the liquor store.
Which. Was. Closed.
It is a measure of my love and affection for Himself, not to mention my recently–acquired maturity, that I didn’t brain him on the spot.
It’s not that I’m an alcoholic, I’m not, it’s just Long Island without alcohol on Good Friday is like Dublin without alcohol on Good Friday.
Boring as hell. And frigging irritating that you have to plan whether or not you want to drink. Where's the spontaneity in that?
So we were forced to forage. We called round that evening to a fishing mate of Himself’s who has just bought a house. His story is another one altogether, which I won’t write about just now, preferring to tell you all about Joey his roomie.
Joey had beer, which he gave me for a packet of smokes, as he preferred whiskey anyways.
And smoke of course.
After working out that I was actually interested in hearing about his story, he told me that he’d just got out of Burnside (secure psychiatric unit in Halifax) after two and a half years for aggravated assault. With an axe, Himself told me the next day. He had been diagnosed with a rare form of schizophrenia while incarcerated and he’s on medication now, he told me.
But I still hear the voices. He smiled widely at me.
Oh yeah? I said.
Yeah, I can even hear them when I’m talking to you.
Right now?
Yup.
Don’t pay any attention to them, pet.
They think you’re nice.
That’s good, pet. Best not to listen to them tonight but.
Okay. Wanna go outside for a smoke?
Sure.
Out he bounded and we sat in the porch and talked.
Joey told me about one time he rambled through the island and found some mushrooms and picked them and ate them for a couple of hours as he wandered around and then realised he was off his head and ran and ran and eventually ended up in the graveyard and fell over. When he came too, he realised he was lying on a grave. WITH HIS OWN NAME ON THE HEADSTONE.
I agreed that that must have been a bit of a mindfuck.
He said he’d gotten addicted to crack and that was what fucked him up.
It’s scary the amount of crack and crystal meth these kids take in rural Nova Scotia, and the health authorities are claiming there’s no problem. Yet. But they know it’s coming. Crystal meth is sweeping the Prairie states at the moment.
He told me about his girlfriend. She’d left because she was scared. He didn’t blame her, but he wanted her back. Then he recited some of the poetry he’d written in Burnside. Which was not bad. A bit tortured, but pretty articulate. Nice metre to it as far as I remember. Eventually, we went back inside.
Himself was sitting watching his mate send rude emoticons to some girl he’s flirting with on MSN. He looked bored. Joey’s dog was sitting in front of him waiting for him to throw a plastic bone for him. Every now and again Himself started tapping his beer bottle with a coin. It drove the dog demented, made him jump up and down all over us.
I don’t know why.
His mate was playing some awful techno shite on his computer, so Joey asked me whether I’d like to see his cd collection.
There was a lot of Korn.
I mean a lot.
We agreed to play some Marilyn Manson instead. His landlord was still playing his techno, so we had about five minutes of noise war, with MM on one side and techno on the other before I yelled at one of them to stop.
Himself and myself looked at each other at that point. Made that universal couple sign for ‘let’s get the hell out of here’. Joey spotted it.
Where are you taking her? Down to the camp by Balancing Rock?
Big leer.
Himself said we’d just go home probably.
That’s where I’d take you. Another big leer.
Lovely pet. Bit old for you though, yeah?
He sort of shrugged, as if to say that didn’t bother him.
Outside we hopped in the car and drove down to the wharf to watch the full moon rise. It was orange and very round and very mystical. It was definitely affecting Joey, I said. Himself told me that Joey was drinking very heavily and that we should probably avoid him for a bit.
The next day someone told me that Joey used to be the best looking boy in the school, a great hockey player and all the girls after him. Now everyone’s wondering when he’ll attack someone again. What kind of a place exists where an obviously very sick boy such as Joey can be thrown out to fend for himself with a bit of medication and a look in every now and again.
That’s Nova Scotia for ya.
Chinese seaweed
Queenie knows she’s not supposed to anthropomorphise her pets, but if she could, she’d have two happy little fish today. She got up reasonably early for a Saturday, and went to the shop and got a ten gallon tank and all the trimmings, before she got too lazy to do it. And then spent about two hours trying to construct the ‘state of the art’ filter that had the most incomprehensible set of instructions she’s ever read. And she put a pine-slatted bed together by herself once. And a computer table. And numerous patio heaters. Eventually she just dumped it back in the box and reinstalled the one from the smaller tank and turned it on overdrive. It seems to be working.
Then she had to carefully rinse about ten pounds of gravel and various artificial water plants and a ‘rusted’ bell, which she just had to buy because it reminded her of the day she sat on the shore of Long Island on a cold bright March day, and watched Himself take an abandoned thirty foot stainless steel buoy apart. Singlehandedly Just to get the bell off. Even though he knew it was too heavy to move off the shore. And he wouldn't have taken it anyway.
Queenie reckons Himself just likes beating large inanimate objects into submission.
Anyway, the book that came with the tank said to wait twenty four hours before ‘gently introducing the fish to their new Regent environment’. So Queenie sat for a minute or two, trying to curb her instinct for instant gratification. Then she grabbed the two fish gently behind the gills, lifted them out of the smaller tank and just plopped them in.
And put some ick stuff in to make herself feel better. Although they don’t like the ick stuff. She put it in one day and Alexa swam past as she was doing it and got it in the eye and was very put out for a few minutes.
Anyways, it was interesting to watch their circles getting wider as they realised how much more space they had to swim in. As usual, Alexa is the bolder of the two and has already figured out how to swim around the bell and squeeze past it. They also spend a lot of time swimming alongside the plants. Queenie feels very guilty that they’re just crappy Chinese made plastic ones, instead of the soft-fronded flora they should be used to.
Queenie spent a lot of time today just watching the fish and wondering what Chinese people make of us when they’re standing in some awful work camp assembly line, putting together aquarium plants, or toys, or cake decorations, or Thanksgiving wreaths, or whatever.
Do they dream of some awful retribution when the time comes for them to take over the world. Queenie hopes they do. And they'll start with Walmart, the IBM of Chinese workcamps.
Friday, April 21, 2006
Photos accepted for publication
Four months ago, Queenie sent in a few snaps to the Daily News, which is publishing a book called Lost in Nova Scotia. To her amazement and delight, they have accepted two and so she is to be published.It'd never happen at home. Not because home is bad. Because Queenie would never have submitted them at home.
One of them is Balancing Rock on a Foggy Day, which I posted to the blog a few months back. The other one is Cliffs at Cape John, which is above.
As Jersey Girl would say, I am psyched.
Elvis lives and is a Saskatchewanian
Friday evening. Finally. Just me and the Carassius auratii. Or should that be the Carassii Auratii? Or the Carassii Auratis?
The goldfish. I wasn’t in the kind of school that did Latin. We did woodwork instead. Bloody good school it was too.
Yes, the goldfish. Swimming around contentedly. Boy are they going to get a big surprise when they get a groovy new tank tomorrow. As you may remember, I named them after two candidates I worked with in the federal election. I have a new candidate. Well, not new, I’ve been canvassing with him since last September. But new in that it’s his moment. By-election soon. If not a provincial election. The government called a by-election seven months late, to avoid the student vote as well as for other more arcane political reasons. And now the word is that they’ll drop the writ for a provincial election around the same time. So we have no idea what date we should be aiming for. Doesn’t matter. We’re ready anyways.
So BRING IT ON DUDES!
I’m so mature about these things.
He’s loving it so far. My candidate. He’s great. I hope he wins. He’ll be a wonderful addition to the legislature.
I shall buy another fish if he does and name him after him.
We have a campaign manager. In from Saskatchewan. What do you call someone from Saskatchewan? A Saskatchewanian? Jesus, I can’t believe I was able to spell that. Good schooling, d’ya know. Great Geography teacher, name of Papa Smurf.
Anyways, the new campaign manager, whom I’ll call El Presidente, for two reasons, one because he shares a surname with a very famous US President, the one that got the lads out of Vietnam after Johnson fucked the war up, and two, because he’s very presidential in that kind of way, anyways El Pres (fuck it, now that I look at it again I’ll call him Elvis) Elvis met us today and did the campaign manager thing.
Interesting.
I’m listening to Sleator-Kinney now. Very loud. Very Friday evening let’s get the work buzz out of my ears please loud.
Yeah, interesting.
He had a whole pile of work to do. He had to take charge, motivate us, calm us down, stoke us up, stroke us, stroke the candidate, stroke the people who were looking after him, listen to us, ignore us without letting on he was, get to know us, let us know how great he was, and get some work done. All in three hours.
I would have had a splitting headache and three mortal enemies if I had had to do it.
So I was impressed that he pulled it off. He remembered people’s roles in lieu of knowing them and it was uncanny how well it worked – politely rip up the literature, while apologising to the literature people, defer to the money guy while pushing the spending his way, joke with the sign people until they let go of their particular needs, stroke the co-chairs incessantly because it’s only week one and they’re exhausted with the prep already, ignore those of us who don’t have a specific role, ignore the woman who makes interesting but irrelevant and negative comments from slightly behind him all night, make jokes about stroking the candidate instead of actually doing it because he’d already sussed that he’s a little ball of self-confidence.
Although a small word of advice Elvis, the candidate is a total wind up merchant and there is no way you are going to get one up on him in a slagging contest. No way. Christ knows I’ve tried. He beats me hands down every time.
Yeah, I learned a lot by just watching him.
Not so impressed that the meeting broke up with nobody sure who was going to do all the work tomorrow. Apart from being sure that most of them weren’t going to do it. But we can’t have everything in one night, I suppose. This weekend will galvanise most of them.
He gave us a little talk about an election in Manitoba where he was given the keys of the office and then his Election Planning Committee fucked off and left him alone for the campaign. He ruined it for me when he said he’d won it, though. I would have lied, just to press home the point. But he’s a man, so of course he can’t look bad. Ever.
But anyways, Elvis is, by all accounts, the man to deliver. First and foremost, by his own account. But more importantly, by other people’s accounts.
We shall see.
It was refreshing to have a non-Nova Scotian in the room anyways. Actually, there were quite a few of us, but the rest of us kept quiet. Until Elvis had left the building.
I had to do that.
Political meetings are class. Me and Hotspur the goddess of spin were talking today about the ultimate sitcom – a The Office type eight episode series on a by-election. One of us really should do it.
Anyways, enough about work. Three twelve hour days on the trot. Too much for the week that was in it.
Enjoy the weekend Queenie, you’ve earned it.
The goldfish. I wasn’t in the kind of school that did Latin. We did woodwork instead. Bloody good school it was too.
Yes, the goldfish. Swimming around contentedly. Boy are they going to get a big surprise when they get a groovy new tank tomorrow. As you may remember, I named them after two candidates I worked with in the federal election. I have a new candidate. Well, not new, I’ve been canvassing with him since last September. But new in that it’s his moment. By-election soon. If not a provincial election. The government called a by-election seven months late, to avoid the student vote as well as for other more arcane political reasons. And now the word is that they’ll drop the writ for a provincial election around the same time. So we have no idea what date we should be aiming for. Doesn’t matter. We’re ready anyways.
So BRING IT ON DUDES!
I’m so mature about these things.
He’s loving it so far. My candidate. He’s great. I hope he wins. He’ll be a wonderful addition to the legislature.
I shall buy another fish if he does and name him after him.
We have a campaign manager. In from Saskatchewan. What do you call someone from Saskatchewan? A Saskatchewanian? Jesus, I can’t believe I was able to spell that. Good schooling, d’ya know. Great Geography teacher, name of Papa Smurf.
Anyways, the new campaign manager, whom I’ll call El Presidente, for two reasons, one because he shares a surname with a very famous US President, the one that got the lads out of Vietnam after Johnson fucked the war up, and two, because he’s very presidential in that kind of way, anyways El Pres (fuck it, now that I look at it again I’ll call him Elvis) Elvis met us today and did the campaign manager thing.
Interesting.
I’m listening to Sleator-Kinney now. Very loud. Very Friday evening let’s get the work buzz out of my ears please loud.
Yeah, interesting.
He had a whole pile of work to do. He had to take charge, motivate us, calm us down, stoke us up, stroke us, stroke the candidate, stroke the people who were looking after him, listen to us, ignore us without letting on he was, get to know us, let us know how great he was, and get some work done. All in three hours.
I would have had a splitting headache and three mortal enemies if I had had to do it.
So I was impressed that he pulled it off. He remembered people’s roles in lieu of knowing them and it was uncanny how well it worked – politely rip up the literature, while apologising to the literature people, defer to the money guy while pushing the spending his way, joke with the sign people until they let go of their particular needs, stroke the co-chairs incessantly because it’s only week one and they’re exhausted with the prep already, ignore those of us who don’t have a specific role, ignore the woman who makes interesting but irrelevant and negative comments from slightly behind him all night, make jokes about stroking the candidate instead of actually doing it because he’d already sussed that he’s a little ball of self-confidence.
Although a small word of advice Elvis, the candidate is a total wind up merchant and there is no way you are going to get one up on him in a slagging contest. No way. Christ knows I’ve tried. He beats me hands down every time.
Yeah, I learned a lot by just watching him.
Not so impressed that the meeting broke up with nobody sure who was going to do all the work tomorrow. Apart from being sure that most of them weren’t going to do it. But we can’t have everything in one night, I suppose. This weekend will galvanise most of them.
He gave us a little talk about an election in Manitoba where he was given the keys of the office and then his Election Planning Committee fucked off and left him alone for the campaign. He ruined it for me when he said he’d won it, though. I would have lied, just to press home the point. But he’s a man, so of course he can’t look bad. Ever.
But anyways, Elvis is, by all accounts, the man to deliver. First and foremost, by his own account. But more importantly, by other people’s accounts.
We shall see.
It was refreshing to have a non-Nova Scotian in the room anyways. Actually, there were quite a few of us, but the rest of us kept quiet. Until Elvis had left the building.
I had to do that.
Political meetings are class. Me and Hotspur the goddess of spin were talking today about the ultimate sitcom – a The Office type eight episode series on a by-election. One of us really should do it.
Anyways, enough about work. Three twelve hour days on the trot. Too much for the week that was in it.
Enjoy the weekend Queenie, you’ve earned it.
Thursday, April 20, 2006
It is truly spring today ... apparently
I got this email from a bloke I work with down on the South Shore sometimes... he's an immigrant too and hates the long winters, so he's been reassuring me with each slide back into winter... I thought I'd post this as it's interesting folklore
Dear Queenie,
We had the long-awaited "grass snow" (post-equinox snowfall #3) yesterday.
On Sunday, I dropped in to the La Have Bakery. The owner is a francophone from Quebec. She hates winter as much as I. This gives us a mutual interest - a prerequisite for small-town small talk. I mentioned we had not yet had the "third snow".
She thought aloud a minute. "We had the Sugar snow, then the Shad snow, but you're right, "she told me, "we haven't yet had the Crow snow.
So we compared notes on the names of the snowfalls. Sugar refers to Maple Syrup production, and the beginning "sap runs" of late March. This equates to our "smelt snow".
Shad are an anadromous member of the Herring family, like Alewife (a/k/a Gaspereau, Kayak). They run up the St. Lawrence and into larger Quebec rivers, like the Saguenay. The timing of Quebec Shad runs roughly coincides with the arrival of migrant Newfoundland Race Robins (the black-headed ones) in Nova Scotia. Thus, Shad Snow=Robin Snow.
I am left to conclude our Grass Snow equates to Quebec's "Crow" snow. Crows are not truly migratory, but they do withdraw from the northernmost parts of their range (leaving behind their relative, the Raven). As Spring comes, the Crow recolonizes areas of its range abandoned in winter. This happens in mid-April.
The long and short of it is that you may now conclude it is True Spring!
Cheers
Paul
Cheers yourself Paul... it had better be!
Dear Queenie,
We had the long-awaited "grass snow" (post-equinox snowfall #3) yesterday.
On Sunday, I dropped in to the La Have Bakery. The owner is a francophone from Quebec. She hates winter as much as I. This gives us a mutual interest - a prerequisite for small-town small talk. I mentioned we had not yet had the "third snow".
She thought aloud a minute. "We had the Sugar snow, then the Shad snow, but you're right, "she told me, "we haven't yet had the Crow snow.
So we compared notes on the names of the snowfalls. Sugar refers to Maple Syrup production, and the beginning "sap runs" of late March. This equates to our "smelt snow".
Shad are an anadromous member of the Herring family, like Alewife (a/k/a Gaspereau, Kayak). They run up the St. Lawrence and into larger Quebec rivers, like the Saguenay. The timing of Quebec Shad runs roughly coincides with the arrival of migrant Newfoundland Race Robins (the black-headed ones) in Nova Scotia. Thus, Shad Snow=Robin Snow.
I am left to conclude our Grass Snow equates to Quebec's "Crow" snow. Crows are not truly migratory, but they do withdraw from the northernmost parts of their range (leaving behind their relative, the Raven). As Spring comes, the Crow recolonizes areas of its range abandoned in winter. This happens in mid-April.
The long and short of it is that you may now conclude it is True Spring!
Cheers
Paul
Cheers yourself Paul... it had better be!
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
New Room, New Roomie, New Election Date
Well, now I’ve dried my eyes and got a beer from the fridge and Shazz called to see whether I was okay and I was as soon as I talked to her of course and there are millions of people in the world in worse shape than us, so it’s time to get on with it.
So, what’s Queenie been up to?
Lots and lots.
New Room
First and foremost, Psycho Bruce is GONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And Queenie got his room, which is FANTASTIC. Why he spent a minute downstairs is beyond us. We love this room. I love this room.
It runs almost the length of the house, with sloped ceilings that I bang my head off all the time, and four windows, two of them skylights. There’s a walk-in closet and a little bathroom. There are four large cupboards, two at either end, in which you can sit. Missy told me the last tenant but one used to smoke weed in one of them.
I have a new rug, and loads of new mirrors and candles and all kinds of nautical collectibles and stones from Nova Scotia and glass bottles scattered round, and some paintings that I acquired this year, and all my windchimes, and my books, and an aloe vera plant Himself’s sister gave me.
And the fish of course. They love their new room. Although the tank is pitifully small and I will buy a new one this weekend.
And Missy gave me her television when she left, which was just class of her, so now I can eat crisps in bed and watch tv whenever I feel like doing just that.
Of course, that’s why Psycho B didn’t spend much time up here, as he was too cheap to buy a tv despite the fact that he worked in an electronics shop.
New Roomies
So PB is gone. Missy is gone. Off to Toronto to live with her man. Swept in for a flying visit last week and went off again tonight.
Now Melanie has moved in. She’s Acadian and she watches French tv all the time. She’s very nice. We get on well.
So it’s all good. Missy’s room is up to let at the moment, so fingers crossed.
And the two guys downstairs are subletting for the summer, but they are subletting to clones of themselves so that shouldn’t be a problem.
We are now a two car household. Mr. E. next door is going crazy. This morning he tried to block us all in with his old VW, because otherwise we would drive on his tarmac to get out and it ‘gets scuffed’.
Whatever.
As Himself says, ‘old people can be very strange’.
Writing workshop
This was very exciting. Halifax had a Writers Fest, which was a bit small and too packed into five days to be much use to someone with other things to do. But they had one or two good authors in attendance, and I should give a plug to Frog Hollow Books on Spring Garden Rd., who organised it – well done for bringing some much-needed literary culture to the city. I’m about done with the music scene and the theatre here is very dull.
Although the gallery scene here is pretty good I must say. Lucy Liu had an exhibition of her work here a couple of weeks ago and it was very interesting stuff.
I attended a workshop held by Joseph Boyden, author of Three Day Road which was my favourite book last year, and two other guys, neither of whom could hold a candle to his comments.
Joseph told me the book is out in paperback in the UK now so you should all buy it. Well, I’m telling you to buy it on his behalf because he’s far too nice to say it, but he’s a real writer in the sense that all he cares about is selling his book. Which is good.
The workshop was very laid back, more a conversation about writing. We mostly talked about mixing reality and historical fact with fiction and what you could get away with and stuff. I forgot Margaret Atwood’s name, referring to her as ‘yer one that wrote the new book about Penelope’, to which it seemed the very room exhaled margedadwood in that really fast way in which people say it here.
Which was a bit embarrassing, but they let me away with it because I was Irish but really, I should know better. I mean, I do know better.
Anyways, Boyden made some really interesting comments about developing characters that I think will help me, as all the things he said not to do are what I always do. Like mapping things out too much for them. And he talked a lot about splitting characters that are too unwieldy into splinters and freeing the splinters into the map of the story to find their own path. Which sounds like a total buzz. If I could pull it off. It was comforting to hear that I am not experiencing anything new to a scribbler.
Anyways, I have a new, mental idea for a plot, which is so close to the soap opera that is my life that I can definitely write it I think, and hopefully I will get something down on paper in the next few weeks if my head is not wrecked by an election.
Election
Which it most likely will although I am not going to speculate online as people get fired for less these days.
Christ on a bicycle, am I the only political hack in the world that hates the things? Up early every day and bed late every night, not that it matters because there’s no sleep apart from tossing and turning-type dozing because you’re worrying about the next day. No proper meals for weeks because you never get to the supermarket; that constant grimy feeling of dust on your skin, because you’re in some cheap and nasty makeshift office surrounded by signs and annoying volunteers and printers that stop working at nine pm when you’re so tired you can’t see and then you have to call someone in fucking Kentville and drive the CD over there. Because the letter has to go out tonight. Except you have to find a Staples open first because one of the volunteers borrowed the box of CDs.
Knocking on doors. Knocking in signs. Being blinded by every opposition sign for weeks and weeks. Endless conversations with people who couldn't give a shit about voting despite the fact that the reason why they’re Canadian is because their forefathers actually did. Remembering to check the car in the driveway for a Veterans sticker. Commiserating about the price of gas with some biddy who has an SUV parked in the driveway of her forced air heated home.
I have radiators. I don’t count.
Endless conversations about whether it’s Vision of the Future or Future of the Vision or whether it should just be Future Vision, and me sitting there trying not to say ‘they put the fucking things in the BIN without reading them’.
Because they don't know what I mean when I say bin. And I'm not saying trash. Or store.
Ever.
Data entry. Putting the results of each day’s canvass into the database. Waiting for the printout. Poring over the numbers. Never enough numbers. Will we peak too late? Or if there’s a miracle and there are enough numbers, are we peaking too soon?
The voices of the phone canvassers in the background. The same pitch over and over again. Until I want to SCREAM!!!!!!!!! Getting really stroppy when yet another volunteer who hates the fact that I don't like her and don't bother hiding it wants to know why I won’t phone canvass – with my delightful accent.
Because no one in this country can understand a fucking word I say on the phone.
Being shushed for swearing in the vicinity of the phone canvassers. The campaign worker getting her own back by putting up a No Swearing sign.
What? What? Do you think they think politicians don’t fucking swear? I suppose we all shit glass too, do we?
Going to the smelly toilet down the back, that the vegan just used, for a weep. Going outside for a smoke in the rain. Bitching about everyone inside. Emptying the coffee pot for the fifteenth time that day.
Sigh.
Himself says he doesn’t know how I do it. He did it once for a couple of weeks. He couldn’t remember anyone’s name. He didn’t even try. He did that thing he does when he’s in a room full of egos. He just sat there waiting for input. And then he decided how to react.
And of course everyone loved him as they always do because he's got such a gentle soul. And such a kind wit. Not hard-edged like mine.
I wish I could do that.
Unfortunately, I turn into one of the egos when he’s not around to remind me it's just the work I do that makes me brittle. And that it will be all over soon. And I can just be me again.
Another sigh.
Swig of beer.
Time to post. Then I’ll tackle Easter.
So, what’s Queenie been up to?
Lots and lots.
New Room
First and foremost, Psycho Bruce is GONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And Queenie got his room, which is FANTASTIC. Why he spent a minute downstairs is beyond us. We love this room. I love this room.
It runs almost the length of the house, with sloped ceilings that I bang my head off all the time, and four windows, two of them skylights. There’s a walk-in closet and a little bathroom. There are four large cupboards, two at either end, in which you can sit. Missy told me the last tenant but one used to smoke weed in one of them.
I have a new rug, and loads of new mirrors and candles and all kinds of nautical collectibles and stones from Nova Scotia and glass bottles scattered round, and some paintings that I acquired this year, and all my windchimes, and my books, and an aloe vera plant Himself’s sister gave me.
And the fish of course. They love their new room. Although the tank is pitifully small and I will buy a new one this weekend.
And Missy gave me her television when she left, which was just class of her, so now I can eat crisps in bed and watch tv whenever I feel like doing just that.
Of course, that’s why Psycho B didn’t spend much time up here, as he was too cheap to buy a tv despite the fact that he worked in an electronics shop.
New Roomies
So PB is gone. Missy is gone. Off to Toronto to live with her man. Swept in for a flying visit last week and went off again tonight.
Now Melanie has moved in. She’s Acadian and she watches French tv all the time. She’s very nice. We get on well.
So it’s all good. Missy’s room is up to let at the moment, so fingers crossed.
And the two guys downstairs are subletting for the summer, but they are subletting to clones of themselves so that shouldn’t be a problem.
We are now a two car household. Mr. E. next door is going crazy. This morning he tried to block us all in with his old VW, because otherwise we would drive on his tarmac to get out and it ‘gets scuffed’.
Whatever.
As Himself says, ‘old people can be very strange’.
Writing workshop
This was very exciting. Halifax had a Writers Fest, which was a bit small and too packed into five days to be much use to someone with other things to do. But they had one or two good authors in attendance, and I should give a plug to Frog Hollow Books on Spring Garden Rd., who organised it – well done for bringing some much-needed literary culture to the city. I’m about done with the music scene and the theatre here is very dull.
Although the gallery scene here is pretty good I must say. Lucy Liu had an exhibition of her work here a couple of weeks ago and it was very interesting stuff.
I attended a workshop held by Joseph Boyden, author of Three Day Road which was my favourite book last year, and two other guys, neither of whom could hold a candle to his comments.
Joseph told me the book is out in paperback in the UK now so you should all buy it. Well, I’m telling you to buy it on his behalf because he’s far too nice to say it, but he’s a real writer in the sense that all he cares about is selling his book. Which is good.
The workshop was very laid back, more a conversation about writing. We mostly talked about mixing reality and historical fact with fiction and what you could get away with and stuff. I forgot Margaret Atwood’s name, referring to her as ‘yer one that wrote the new book about Penelope’, to which it seemed the very room exhaled margedadwood in that really fast way in which people say it here.
Which was a bit embarrassing, but they let me away with it because I was Irish but really, I should know better. I mean, I do know better.
Anyways, Boyden made some really interesting comments about developing characters that I think will help me, as all the things he said not to do are what I always do. Like mapping things out too much for them. And he talked a lot about splitting characters that are too unwieldy into splinters and freeing the splinters into the map of the story to find their own path. Which sounds like a total buzz. If I could pull it off. It was comforting to hear that I am not experiencing anything new to a scribbler.
Anyways, I have a new, mental idea for a plot, which is so close to the soap opera that is my life that I can definitely write it I think, and hopefully I will get something down on paper in the next few weeks if my head is not wrecked by an election.
Election
Which it most likely will although I am not going to speculate online as people get fired for less these days.
Christ on a bicycle, am I the only political hack in the world that hates the things? Up early every day and bed late every night, not that it matters because there’s no sleep apart from tossing and turning-type dozing because you’re worrying about the next day. No proper meals for weeks because you never get to the supermarket; that constant grimy feeling of dust on your skin, because you’re in some cheap and nasty makeshift office surrounded by signs and annoying volunteers and printers that stop working at nine pm when you’re so tired you can’t see and then you have to call someone in fucking Kentville and drive the CD over there. Because the letter has to go out tonight. Except you have to find a Staples open first because one of the volunteers borrowed the box of CDs.
Knocking on doors. Knocking in signs. Being blinded by every opposition sign for weeks and weeks. Endless conversations with people who couldn't give a shit about voting despite the fact that the reason why they’re Canadian is because their forefathers actually did. Remembering to check the car in the driveway for a Veterans sticker. Commiserating about the price of gas with some biddy who has an SUV parked in the driveway of her forced air heated home.
I have radiators. I don’t count.
Endless conversations about whether it’s Vision of the Future or Future of the Vision or whether it should just be Future Vision, and me sitting there trying not to say ‘they put the fucking things in the BIN without reading them’.
Because they don't know what I mean when I say bin. And I'm not saying trash. Or store.
Ever.
Data entry. Putting the results of each day’s canvass into the database. Waiting for the printout. Poring over the numbers. Never enough numbers. Will we peak too late? Or if there’s a miracle and there are enough numbers, are we peaking too soon?
The voices of the phone canvassers in the background. The same pitch over and over again. Until I want to SCREAM!!!!!!!!! Getting really stroppy when yet another volunteer who hates the fact that I don't like her and don't bother hiding it wants to know why I won’t phone canvass – with my delightful accent.
Because no one in this country can understand a fucking word I say on the phone.
Being shushed for swearing in the vicinity of the phone canvassers. The campaign worker getting her own back by putting up a No Swearing sign.
What? What? Do you think they think politicians don’t fucking swear? I suppose we all shit glass too, do we?
Going to the smelly toilet down the back, that the vegan just used, for a weep. Going outside for a smoke in the rain. Bitching about everyone inside. Emptying the coffee pot for the fifteenth time that day.
Sigh.
Himself says he doesn’t know how I do it. He did it once for a couple of weeks. He couldn’t remember anyone’s name. He didn’t even try. He did that thing he does when he’s in a room full of egos. He just sat there waiting for input. And then he decided how to react.
And of course everyone loved him as they always do because he's got such a gentle soul. And such a kind wit. Not hard-edged like mine.
I wish I could do that.
Unfortunately, I turn into one of the egos when he’s not around to remind me it's just the work I do that makes me brittle. And that it will be all over soon. And I can just be me again.
Another sigh.
Swig of beer.
Time to post. Then I’ll tackle Easter.
Life is what happens when you should be blogging about it
Queenie’s back, sorry for the lapse in posting. She had to live her life with huge intensity for the last couple of weeks. People coming and going and talking and discussing and phoning and thinking and spending precious time with each other and saying hello and goodbye and giving stuff away and taking stuff in and spending more precious time and making decisions and plans and then thinking some more.
But the rush is over now. Everything's done and decided and all we have to do now is wait for life to work itself out as it knows best. And to try to let that happen.
Himself is gone. Left on a jet plane this afternoon. For Grassland Alberta. Which is actually on Google Earth. That was important. To be able to spy on the place.
We circled the globe a few times last night and I showed Himself where I was born and where I lived and worked in Dublin and where all my friends lived. And we looked at the Rockies and the Andes and the Himalayas and Baghdad and Kandahar and Africa (which is covered in pop ups!!!!) and Venezuela and India and BC and where Himself is from and where he's gone now.
Queenie came back to an empty house tonight and let herself in quietly. Walked around feeling his imprint everywhere. He had put the dishwasher on. He had washed the saucepans. He had put her phone back on its charger. He had found her cigarettes and put them in her room. He had fixed her keyboard (which was one of the reasons why she wasn’t too pushed about blogging recently). He had fed the fish. He had bought new batteries for her clock, and glue for her scrapbooks.
He had put a new roll of toilet paper on the toilet paper holder (Queenie's hatred of doing which was the subject of a previous blog).
That’s when Queenie started to cry. What a picture she must have made, leaning against the little cistern (he had put the seat down of course) with her coat still on and her bag over her shoulder (her lovely, dusky blue, soft, thick, chamois leather, designer, French, hand-stitched shoulder bag, which she bought for two hundred euro even though she had no money, as an expensive reminder, on the day she swore she'd let herself be fucked over by a man for the last time in her life, the clasp of which broke irreversibly today) and her library books in her arms, eventually sitting there on her little en-suite, howling with grief over the absence of a man who would not believe that a shoulder bag could cost that much, but who would buy it for her anyway if she said she had to have it, which she never would of course because she doesn't need designer bags anymore. A man who would happily spend all afternoon figuring out how to fix the clasp if it was a wet Saturday and Queenie was doing something solitary and there was nothing else to be fixed or built or moved or painted or scraped or whatever. Who would have a piece of metal 2mm x 4mm somewhere in his universe that would do the job perfectly. Who would add some flourish of his own to improve the design or just make it beautiful. Who would decide to remove the stains in the leather caused by Queenie's complete disregard for her possessions and present it to her good as new just to see her reaction. A man who never remembers to make himself breakfast, but who remembers every like and dislike and phobia of the woman he loves.
Some things in life are no-brainers.
But the rush is over now. Everything's done and decided and all we have to do now is wait for life to work itself out as it knows best. And to try to let that happen.
Himself is gone. Left on a jet plane this afternoon. For Grassland Alberta. Which is actually on Google Earth. That was important. To be able to spy on the place.
We circled the globe a few times last night and I showed Himself where I was born and where I lived and worked in Dublin and where all my friends lived. And we looked at the Rockies and the Andes and the Himalayas and Baghdad and Kandahar and Africa (which is covered in pop ups!!!!) and Venezuela and India and BC and where Himself is from and where he's gone now.
Queenie came back to an empty house tonight and let herself in quietly. Walked around feeling his imprint everywhere. He had put the dishwasher on. He had washed the saucepans. He had put her phone back on its charger. He had found her cigarettes and put them in her room. He had fixed her keyboard (which was one of the reasons why she wasn’t too pushed about blogging recently). He had fed the fish. He had bought new batteries for her clock, and glue for her scrapbooks.
He had put a new roll of toilet paper on the toilet paper holder (Queenie's hatred of doing which was the subject of a previous blog).
That’s when Queenie started to cry. What a picture she must have made, leaning against the little cistern (he had put the seat down of course) with her coat still on and her bag over her shoulder (her lovely, dusky blue, soft, thick, chamois leather, designer, French, hand-stitched shoulder bag, which she bought for two hundred euro even though she had no money, as an expensive reminder, on the day she swore she'd let herself be fucked over by a man for the last time in her life, the clasp of which broke irreversibly today) and her library books in her arms, eventually sitting there on her little en-suite, howling with grief over the absence of a man who would not believe that a shoulder bag could cost that much, but who would buy it for her anyway if she said she had to have it, which she never would of course because she doesn't need designer bags anymore. A man who would happily spend all afternoon figuring out how to fix the clasp if it was a wet Saturday and Queenie was doing something solitary and there was nothing else to be fixed or built or moved or painted or scraped or whatever. Who would have a piece of metal 2mm x 4mm somewhere in his universe that would do the job perfectly. Who would add some flourish of his own to improve the design or just make it beautiful. Who would decide to remove the stains in the leather caused by Queenie's complete disregard for her possessions and present it to her good as new just to see her reaction. A man who never remembers to make himself breakfast, but who remembers every like and dislike and phobia of the woman he loves.
Some things in life are no-brainers.
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