On Birthday Presents for Mothers

"As it was Mother's birthday that we were going to celebrate... we were all busy working out our presents for her. After some thought, I had decided to give her a butterfly net since she evinced such a great interest in my butterfly collection. Margo bought her a dress length of material which she rather wanted herself. Larry bought her a book which he wanted to read, and Leslie bought her a small pearl-handled revolver. As he explained to me, it would make her feel safe when we left her alone in the house. As his room was already a bristling armoury of guns of various shapes and sizes, none of which Mother knew how to use, I felt with was a curious choice for a present, but I said nothing."

Gerald Durrell in Fillets of Plaice

But the news isn't all bad!

Congratulations to all the happy couples in Canada and now San Francisco!

“You can't imagine what it's like from a distance. Straight or gay, visitors get teary when they walk inside City Hall, where the meaning of what Newsom did is huge and palpable. It's always struck me as vaguely homophobic, the insistence on how "normal" these couples are, but that really is what hits you in person. Sure, there are drag queens in the line waiting for marriage licenses, and plenty of old-fashioned flannel-shirted lesbians. But there are also 50-something men in bad suits and women in Prada; there are women in wheelchairs and interracial couples; and there are children everywhere, kids doing homework sitting on the floor as they wait for their parents' turn to get married. These are families already, and once you see them you know: There's really no going back.”

Joan Walsh in Salon.com
www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/02/26/weddings/index.html

Not to be a drag or anything...

But check this out.

www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1153531,00.html

We all might want to think about making that next car a hybrid. And we might want to think about this stuff when we choose our politicians. Dear Potential President/Prime Minister: What is your stance on the Kyoto Protocol? Can I get that in writing?

Fear and Loathing in the Supermarket Lineup

I have noticed that when I buy lots of fruit and vegetables, particularly organic ones, I sashay around the supermarket feeling like a righteous citizen.

But when I'm making a run for the Hamburger Helper or Chef Boyardee my demeanor is considerably less jaunty. You might even call it furtive.

Last night I bought flaxseed oil. I was practically singing and dancing as I brought my basket through the line up. Check me out! Coming through with Omega 3s!

Instead of being shallow and pretentious, I want to be like that couple in front of me. They had the grocery order from hell. Jumbo-sized inexpensive ice cream, ropes of garlic sausage, full fat chips, gallons of no-name pop, TV dinners, WAGON WHEELS! And they weren't shy about it at all. They had their heads up. They even chatted amiably with the clerk, as though they weren't the greatest nutritional criminals to ever walk a check out line. They reminded me of the late teen/early twenties guys you sometimes see in the supermarket, cooking for themselves for the first time. They buy the most outrageous stuff: Pop Tarts and Fruit Loops with a side of fried chicken. And you just know they're going to go home and eat all of it in one meal.

Those people have a good sense of themselves. They aren't slaves to the new food morality. I could learn from them.

Just When It All Seems Too Much...

Frank and I finished our walk in Linley Valley and we emerged from the trail, crossed the road to the car and there, waiting for us like a bristly little dream was.... a stray pot belly pig.

He wasn't what you'd call a race pig. He took his sweet time waddling back across the road to his home. But he was friendly enough.



And just when I was thinking this town had nothing to offer...

BUSTED!

Imagine my horror this morning when someone sent me a link to the following article about how the identities of anonymous reviewers showed up on the Amazon.ca website. www.nytimes.com/2004/02/14/technology/14AMAZ.html?ex=1077729878&ei=1&en=7c74502b326d227d

Oh. My. God.

I assume, although I could be wrong, that the reason the unknown person sent me the NY Times article was because it looked like one of the reviews on my Canadian Amazon page had been posted by me. But that review actually was written by someone else, a lovely woman named Edith who just happens to be a friend of my mother. So obviously it's totally legit. She wrote it at my mother's behest (my mother was tired of hearing me moan that I had no reviews). Edith didn't know how to post her coerced review so, because I basically live to help, I posted it for her. (Note: If anyone else is dying to write a rave, but frightened of the technology, don't hesitate to contact me for technical assistance. But getting back to the confessional part of this post...)

Here's the really embarrassing thing. I have written a review of my own book. A very glowing review that appears on the U.S. Amazon site. I'm just grateful now that I only wrote one, not dozens, as I was tempted to do. I did this a few months ago when I felt my ratings needed a bit of a boost. Ahem. The five star (natch) review runs as follows:

"This was one bizarre and funny book. I liked the way Alice was messed up but she didn't try to be something she wasn't. Some people might not like that she didn't try harder to fit in and be so-called normal, but I thought she was great and I loved her family. The whole book was totally hilarious!"

Needless to say, I did not sign it "Susan Juby, Pathetic Author". I signed it, A Reader From New York.

Why did I do such a thing? Because I was on the downward slide to 3 stars, man! I was being taken apart by unforgiving readers! Also, I'd really LIKE to be from New York. (For anyone wondering, no, I don't have a life. Thanks for asking.)

At least I didn't say Alice was the best book I'd ever read, a masterpiece to stand shoulder to shoulder with Under the Volcano. With no small sense of shame I recall that I even tried to make the review sound young (i.e. as though I was an enthusiast from the target market).

So yes, I'm a bit of a loser. That's never really been in question. But I'm in good company. Apparently some very famous and accomplished writers such as Walt Whitman, Salman Rushdie and Martin Amis have been outed as positive "self-reviewers". Oh well, now that the Amazon people seem to have fixed the glitch I can review myself lavishly and often and spare no accolade!

For more opinions on the debacle in a teacup see:
www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/news/editorial/story.html?id=da530e2f-2be0-494d-b226-e712a9a9fa93

P.S. Oddly enough, I just happen to be reading Robin Robertson's Mortification, a book about embarrassing things that happen to writers. "Dear Mr. Robertson, I'm available to contribute to the revised edition of your book..."

Signed: A Blogger from "New York"

Eye of the Tiger

People seem determined not to give Frank his chance at stardom. I've written to all the major producers and pitched the idea of Frank as celebrity canine guest but unbelievably, they've all turned us down.

I'm devastated, but Frank is holding up well.

We're going to try and sneak into the local Idol competition and see if we can't get noticed. It's open mike night at Karaoke Ken's House of Gambling. The management there might by more open-minded than Ben Mulroney of Canadian Idol who wouldn't even come to the phone. Just because he's the son of our lantern-jawed ex-Prime Minister doesn't give him the right to squash the dreams of the less well-connected.

To warm up to the event at Karaoke Ken's, I've taken Frank to the video booth at the New VI TV station several times. A security guard threatened to shoo us out until I pointed out that Frank, with his rendition of "Howlies", is more coherent than the vast majority of people who perform for Speaker's Corner.

Shark Fin Soup
Just to change the subject rather abruptly, please let's everyone stop eating shark fin soup. A new study suggests that oceanic white tip sharks, once the most common large species on earth, have been hunted almost to extinction to make shark fin soup. It is not a particularly palatable dish, but is considered a status symbol. Here's an idea. Find another status symbol. Like, for instance, memorabilia from the newest and hottest reality TV star: Frank Juby!

Read more and tell your friends.

www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040204.wfins0204/BNStory/National/?query=shark+silently

It's time to make shark fin soup uncool.

The Frank Juby Experiment

I tried to resist the rising tide of reality TV. For a year or two I scorned those who watched Survivor and The Bachelor. I said things like “Reality TV is the sign of a decadent society on the downward slide to oblivion.” But no one listened because they were watching reality TV.

Then I started reading reality TV commentary by the likes of Heather Havrilesky of Salon.com and John Doyle in the Globe and Mail and damned if they didn’t say the funniest stuff about those shows. I mean laugh out loud hilarious. So naturally, I became intrigued and began sneakily watching episodes of shows like For Love or Money and Joe Millionaire II where the less than brilliant but nicely muscled cowboy woos and is confused by haggard, drunken European women.

My theory was that I would catch a couple of episodes, and be rewarded with endless amusing material. Our society might be rotting in front of my very eyes, but I’d be commentating on it. And that’s important.

Unfortunately, the damn stuff is addictive. It’s like the crack cocaine of mass media. If burning people alive while eating grapes peeled by naked slaves was even half as entertaining, I can see why the Roman Empire fell. No time to tend the gates, Paradise Hotel, or as Havrileski styles it “Drunk Asshole Hotel” is on.

I was feeling guilty about not being more productive, you know, due to my growing reality TV addiction, but I’ve just had this fantastic idea. I’ll create my own reality TV show called The Frank Juby Experiment. (Please see link opposite). It’s going to be really, really entertaining and positive and even quite alarming.

I would have called it The Susan Juby Experiment and made it about me but then there would be an expectation that funny stuff would happen like it does on The Jamie Kennedy Experiment. And pretty much nothing amusing happens to me because I’m so freaking busy watching reality TV.

The Frank Juby Experiment is going to be about this dog who can’t get his person to pay any attention to him because she’s watching reality TV. To raise the tension there will be some bits where the person gardens (and Frank watches, bored) and some bits where the person goes on a new fitness regime but overeats to compensate and Frank gets to lick the plates (which Frank enjoys). But soon this isn’t enough stimulation and so Frank splits and goes to be a guest dog on other reality TV shows!

Frank will go to live with a wealthy dog (perhaps belonging to that Hilfiger girl?). The rich dog will be so slothful and decadent from being carried around in a Prada bag it will have lost the ability to scratch itself or even use its legs. Like a faith healer or James Herriott caring for Tricky Woo, Frank will teach the Rich Dog to rise up and WALK AGAIN!

Next Frank will go and stay with the Osbourne’s herd of unhousebroken miniature dogs. The Pomeranian, Japanese Chin and Chihauhua will be mildly retarded due to prolonged exposure to Osbourne byproducts, leaving Frank to save Ozzy and Jack when they have a father/son overdose. He will also go for help after any recreational vehicle accidents. We will schedule this for Sweeps Week.

He will cower at the remarks of Simon Cowell and, posing as a stray, scrounge for gourmet scraps behind Jamie’s Kitchen (and dodge kicks aimed by feckless, shirking and sullen London street youth).

The pitch: Littlest Hobo meets Lady and the Tramp by way of Survivor.

Somebody get me a calculator. I’m going to be rich.

P.S. I can't believe I finally figured out how to upload an image to this blog!