The Making of a Medley
Newsstand: November 23, 2009
Transit City and Transit Cities
The Daily Photoist: November 23, 2009
Televisualist: A Kinder, Gentler Televisualist
Condoleezza Rice promises to "look into" why Maher Arar is still on an American terrorist watchlist. Remember when you were at work and someone at work kept stealing your yoghurt and you were pissed so you went to your supervisor and complained and he said he'd "look into" it? This is kind of like that, except Maher Arar is probably a lot less important to Condoleezza Rice than yoghurt is.
Queen's Park Grits and Tories find common ground: they both want more money. Dalton McGuinty promised that the money would just get blown on frivolous things and therefore it would just be directed back into the economy and everybody would win through the miracle of trickle-down economics.
Federal officials claim that allegations that private-sector airport security workers conducted inadequate searches are overblown. Each security worker, for example, at least asked each person bringing carryon onto the plane, "hey, is that your bag?"
Finalists announced in Regent Park art contest to redesign sanitary street covers. Among those not selected: a cover saying in large all-caps print: "WHAT ARE YOU DOING LOOKING AT A MANHOLE COVER, DUMBASS?" And here I thought the time was ripe to reintroduce ridicule back into street life. My bad!
The Canadian Stage Company will not be producing My Name is Rachel Corrie. Arguments about whether or not the play is anti-Semitic propaganda aside, producer Martin Bragg claims that the reason he doesn't want to produce it - well, it boils down to "it sucks."
And finally, J.K. Rowling has announced that the title of the seventh and last Harry Potter book will be Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Potter fandom has already fiercely begun debating the merits of the title, most of it ignoring the fact that it's a frigging children's book and that the title will thus be a wee bit out there regardless.
Photo originally from Warner Brothers' promotional site for "Goblet of Fire" and, ahem, modified.
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The utility cover finalist designs are here if anyone wants to see them. I love the "Sky Above Regent Park" consellation one.
That My Name Is Rachel Corrie "didn't seem as powerful on stage as it did on the page" is only Bragg's officially stated reason. The following paragraph of Martin Knelman's article explains:
I am extremely disappointed with Canstage's decision to cancel the play. As someone who does not go to the theatre on a regular basis, and has not been to Canstage in years, I was very much looking forward to this show and would actually have been willing to pay regular price to see it. I doubt I am the only one; this show had significant potential to be a crossover hit that would attract people who do not normally attend live theatre.But I sympathize with Canstage. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the few issues on which – in the context of American and Canadian society, anyway – the right wing has definitively won, having managed to frame nearly all debate on their own terms, successfully suppressing any expression of differing views by threatening all sorts of consequences, not the least of which is a backlash by the majority of a "community" that no one can afford to alienate.
I know that if I weren't Jewish (or if I headed any sort of organization or were an elected official), I would be terrified to write any of the above, and with good reason.