Canada reads

It's an interesting year for Canada Reads . This is an annual event put on by the Canadian Broadcasting Company. Every year, five panelists are chosen. They each have to defend a Canadian book, which should be chosen as the Canada reads selection for that year.

The choices- "Beautiful Losers" by Leonard Cohen chosen by Rufus Wainwright
"Rockbound" by Frank Parker Day chosen by author Donna Morrissey
"Volkswagen Blues" by Jacques Poulin chosen by author Roch Carrier
"No crystal stair" by Mairuth Sarsfield chosen by fencer Sherraine MacKay
"Oryx and Crake" by Margaret Atwood chosen by Toronto city councillor, Olivia Chow.

If one looks at the past "Canada reads" selections, it is not always the best known book that wins. It will be interesting to see what wins this year. I must confess that I've never heard of "Rockbound", "Volkswagen BLues" or "No crystal stair." I enjoyed "Oryx and Crake", and tried to read "Beautiful Losers", but it hurt my head. I like Leonard Cohen's poetry, but "Beautiful Losers" was just painful. It should be an interesting competition.

Holy shit, stuff's happening...

The past two days have been a whirlwind of writing assignments and such. I just stumbled on a whole bunch of good news. I've got a project/potential job situation in the works, but I'm superstitious, so I'm not going to say too much about it yet. But if it happens, it will be a major triumph.

But in other news, I've got the green light to proceed with two very interesting projects-

1. I'm interviewing Brian Lam, the publisher of Arsenal Pulp . I love Arsenal Pulp. They published a lot of great books including "How it all vegan" and "The Garden of Vegan." Brian is a great success story. He is under 40, queer and Asian Canadian, and basically founded this press himself. I met him once before, and he was very sweet. I'm looking forward to the interview.

2. I got the green light to go ahead with an article about women and the tattoo for Herizons magazine. My deadline for this is March 15. I'm working on a long article about the tattoo and heavily tattooed women. I'm sure that some of the ladies on my friends list will be able to help me. I'm going to study the tattoo, and interview some of the female tattooists in Vancouver.

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It's rather amusing that all this came about on a day when I'm actually feeling under the weather due to stress. I couldn't sleep last night, and I just feel overwhelmed. I need to figure out how to do all my projects, work, look for a job and still have some semblance of a life. If anyone has any advice, (I'm thinking a lot of you, [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com], that would be helpful.

Racial reality

Let me clarify this entry by first saying that I do believe in the concept of race. I know that there are some groups/people who think that such ideas are bullshit, but I seriously do believe that there are biological differences between ethnic groups due to genetic traits. For example, some Asians can't drink because they lack the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase (sp?). First Nations people tend to have very little body hair, etc.

Racial reality is a website dedicated to the genetic study of ethnic groups. Of particular interest (to me, anyway) is the entry on Asian eyes. There are also fantastic pictures of various ethnic groups. I was surprised to find that in one section, a Central Asian person that looked Mongolian is classed as a member of the Yakut group.

(no subject)

I know some of you have seen it. But the comic strip Mom's cancer , is really quite amazing and moving.

Damn skippy!

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