whohub

Interviews are always interesting - no scratch that, they can be boring and stupid. But I liked the straightforward questions asked by the whohub people. I tried to answer them mostly straight - though the temptation to be goofy was high. Check it out. whohub interview

Gulag reading

I recently read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch. It was one of those books I have been meaning to get to. It is more of a novella, so it was easy to read in one sitting. The books I have had the luxury to read this way have been forever ingrained in my brain: Fifth Business by Robertson Davies is one, and a lot of the Three Investigators mystery series as a kid. I recall many lazy Saturday afternoons pouring over the adventures of Jupiter, Pete and Bob.

But reading Ivan, as you can imagine, was a lot different than trying to figure out the mystery of the talking skull.

It was hugely compelling - and I felt guilty for having the compulsion. It is written from the perspective of a Russian political prisoner in the Gulag. It is a somewhat ordinary day (for Ivan, not for us). He gets up in minus 30 degree weather, works in brutal conditions, wearing rag covered feet in his felt boots, trying to stay warm, stay alive, stay out of the hole (solitary). Yet, there is a beauty and incredible grace to his existence - the simplest things, that we take so much for granted, take on grand importance. How do you eat your food, how do you conserve your energy, how do you save your food (your very meager food) to last the day, and how do you lay a perfect row of bricks when your mortar is freezing.

It is hard to know what to say about this books and my summary seems inadequate. But it is one of those books that have changed the way I think.

May you read something similar this Saturday afternoon.

Get off my lawn, Bob!

That old guy in front of Neil's Winnipeg house? It was Bob Dylan

By: Morley Walker

Updated: November 12 at 02:50 AM CST

It's not every day that you drive home from grocery shopping to find Bob Dylan rubbernecking in front of your house.

But that's what happened to city employees John Kiernan and Patti Regan, whose Grosvenor Avenue home was the early-1960s domicile of music icon Neil Young.

"It was very neat," says Kiernan, 53, a landscape architect who claims to have spent about 25 minutes chatting with the famous singer-songwriter.

"It's a wonderful memory."

Two Sundays ago, the day of Dylan's MTS Centre concert, Kiernan and Regan arrived home between 4 and 4:30 p.m. to see two scruffy men who had arrived by taxi standing on the sidewalk outside their house.

"Oh, oh, Neil Young fan alert," said Regan, who has become accustomed to such incidents in the six years they've lived in the amalgamated duplex at 1123 Grosvenor.

She went to talk to them while Kiernan lugged in the groceries. After he was finished, he walked out to chat, too.

"They were older than your typical Young fans," Kiernan recalls thinking.

Nothing clicked until he noticed that one of the men had his black leather pants tucked into expensive-looking cowboy boots. He glanced up and studied the lined, unshaven face topped by a grey tuque and realized he was looking at Dylan.

Kiernan kept his cool, while Regan, a project manager in the city's permits department, remained oblivious. Dylan, 67, was curious about the house and neighbourhood as they related to Young.

He also made small talk about the weather. Kiernan replied that it was unseasonably mild.

"You're from Minnesota, so you know what's usually like," Kiernan said. "Subtract 10 degrees."

Dylan laughed.

Kiernan asked if they wanted to see inside the house, and Dylan was eager.

"How long do you have for the tour?" Kiernan asked, meaning the tour of the house.

Dylan replied: "We're touring for another two weeks."

They showed him Young's old bedroom, now painted bright pink and occupied by Kiernan's 16-year-old daughter.

"So this is where Neil would have listened to his music," Dylan mused.

They took him into the old second-floor kitchen, now a laundry room. "I remember thinking I should have done the laundry before I went out," Kiernan says.

Kiernan explained the whereabouts of the Earl Grey and Crescentwood community centres, where a teenaged Young and bandmates played their first concerts.

"He was introspective and thoughtful," Kiernan said. "He had an interest in music beyond himself."

The encounter lasted more than 20 minutes before the two visitors left. Kiernan believes the cab driver did not know who his passengers were.

While Kiernan called him "Bob," Dylan did not formally acknowledge his identity. He didn't have to. "This was a guy who doesn't shake hands or introduce himself."

As the cab drove off, Kiernan said to Regan: "You were pretty cool talking to a huge celebrity."

"What celebrity?" Regan asked.

"Bob Dylan."

"That's why he looked so familiar!" she exclaimed.

She started screaming to neighbours who were raking their leaves: "Bob Dylan's in the cab! Bob Dylan's in the cab!"

Kiernan admits they have no documentary proof of Dylan's visit, nor did they even get an autograph.

"It seemed cheesy to ask," he said. "I was embarrassed that we hadn't bought tickets to the concert."

The Lemon Tree

The conflict in the Middle East has been long, painful, complex and very hard to understand. I just finished reading a book that helped me, for the first time, begin to understand the conflict.

The very readable, Lemon Tree by Sandy Tolan, explains the conflict since its beginnings in the late 19th century. I say it is very readable, as I wasn't sure how much drudging I'd have to so through political explanations and obscure histories. On the contrary, the history was compelling, though sometimes difficult to read as I realized that this was NOT a novel. This has all happened - and the conflict continues.

What I admired was the balanced view put forward by Tolan - someone explained it to me as full of "yes-buts". As you consider the pain and suffering of one side, this is juxtaposed by the "yes, but... the other side also experienced deep pain and suffering."

I come away shaken. I am moved by the tragedies that people face and endure - and I am shaken that such terror and suffering exists. It is not like I thought it didn't, it's just that when a human face is put to a conflict thousands of miles away, the earth seems like a small place. There is the smallest sliver of hope in the book. People can come from vastly different viewpoints (though, viewpoints seems like an understatement), and truly try to understand and listen to each other. Peace lies at the heart of how we listen to each other. And as one of the main figures in the book says, "In order to have peace, each side must be content to do with less."

I have to check the quote on that, I think I am paraphrasing - but in essence it is about what we give up in order to achieve peace.

I'd highly recommend this book.

Wow (or whew)

It probably comes as no surprise that I am a bit of a political junkie (I don't know, I just seem that way to me!). Rushing home from teaching a class, I flipped between the major networks to see who would call it first. I always do this for elections, listening for the spin, the bias, the over the top metaphors that each network uses to describe the event.

One of the strangest was listening to the BBC pundits going at it, with a somewhat bewildered Ted Koppel amongst them - he didn't say anything for the few moments I watched. He just sat there as the token Yank, maybe wondering whatever happened to his career.

The speeches were the highlight for me - I expected Obama to be eloquent. And thank you CNN for shutting up for the entire walk around Obama and his family did when the speech was finished. I thought, good for you, just let it happen, the pictures and sound are enough (I quick flipped to the other networks, where they blathered on like sports channel colour commentators - it cheapened the whole thing.)

McCain was the surprise. It was probably the best concession speech I have heard. True humility, grace and a ton of class. Who the hell was this guy and what did you do with the other guy? You know, the tongue wagging, sarcastic, grimacing son-of a bitch? Why didn't they let the humble classy guy run?

Yeah, I am all starry-eyed and hopeful even with the realization that the U.S. economy is in the toilet (and we are following the whirlpool down), even with two wars that make no sense, and seemingly have little hope of ending, even with knowing that to stay in power Obama will have to move toward the center, and he may be more conservative than some might think - even with all that, it was a helluva night, and its going to be a helluva next four years.

God bless 'em.