The Muddy Hill Post

Now I can be safe

2009-06-29T10:15:00.002-03:00

Tim Bousquet, news editor at local weekly The Coast, points out the shortcomings of crosswalk safety public service announcements in his "Reality Bites" column this week:

Global TV is airing a pair of public service ads that purport to educate people on how to increase crosswalk safety. The ads, which are lame even by community PSA standards, tell us that there are two “teams” in the game of crossing the street---motorists and pedestrians. But both ads are aimed at only the pedestrian team, which is told to stay between the white lines and for some inexplicable reason to stick their hands out in front of them while crossing the street.

Our Halifax tax dollars have helped produce lots of other crosswalk safety videos, "produced by HRM Traffic and Right-of-Way Services [who knew?] and Global Television."

You can watch them here.

Unfortunately, the two PSAs Tim refers to are not on the page. And you can't embed the videos either (or I would, believe me). Also, confusingly, some are MPEGs and others are WMVs. All are equally inept and unintentionally funny.

But they did get me thinking about weighty topics. For instance, why is a video on why cyclists should wear their helmets considered a crosswalk safety announcement?

With supporters like me....

2009-06-22T18:19:00.002-03:00

Got a letter from GM today. It thanks me for my "unwavering support in these unprecedented times."

And what have I done to to support the troubled company?

I bought my first-ever American car (a Saturn) two years ago. Used. In a private sale.
I got an extended warranty (which I did not purchase) transferred to me from the previous owner.
I've never taken the car to the dealer to be serviced.

I am indeed one strong supporter. Thanks for the recognition GM!

More from Paul's Hall

2009-06-18T16:44:00.004-03:00

Back in May, CBC Radio's Maritime Magazine aired my radio documentary Tobias Beale -- Taking Music Education Beyond School Walls. (You can listen to it here, or tune in to CBC again for a rebroadcast on August 30.)

One of the people featured in the doc was Emma Paul, a young (then 13, now 14), singer doing Summertime in rehearsal.

Emma's still going strong. Here she is sitting in with the Mitchell-Staples Quartet at Paul's (no relation) Hall.

NDP victory in Nova Scotia

2009-06-10T09:19:00.003-03:00

The NDP has finally been elected in Nova Scotia, and with a substantial majority. They take 31 seats, while the Liberals climb to 11 and the Progressive Conservatives drop to 10.

Naturally, comment boards on sites like the Globe and Mail's are full of dire warnings for us foolhardy Nova Scotians. We are in for the kind of socialist hell that Ontario suffered through in the early 1990s.

According to these folks, I guess, every provincial New Democratic Party will be forever tainted by Bob Rae's government. Bob Rae, of course, is now a Liberal.

As I recall, most media had hysterics the moment Rae was elected. In order to demonstrate that he was not a crazed left-wing radical (see above: Bob Rae is now a Liberal), he brought in Rae Days -- unpaid days off for civil servants -- thereby pissing off both right and left and ensuring his defeat.

Are we to believe that every single NDP government from now to eternity will make the same tactical mistake?

The NDP were elected because Nova Scotians are fundamentally decent people, and Darrell Dexter is a fundamentally decent person who ran a fundamentally decent campaign.

I think that's what tipped the balance in a lot of rural ridings (including my own) that many thought would never vote NDP.

The Conservatives rolled out their scary attack ads, which didn't make clear (unless you read the tiny fine print on your TV) who had paid for them. Instead, they directed viewers to their risky NDP site. They ran misleading, nasty radio ads saying the NDP had accepted illegal campaign contributions from unions, and people saw through them. They claimed the NDP would be fiscally irresponsible, when they are the ones who lied about stimulus projects not going ahead if their government fell, and who tried to fudge the fact that they were going to ignore their own balanced budget law.

The Nova Scotia NDP are hardly socialist firebrands. Their promises were modest. Take HST (that's GST plust provincial tax to most of you in the rest of the country) off electricity. Keep seniors in their homes longer. Keep emergency rooms open. Develop a plan to encourage young people to stay here.

It worked. Good luck to them.

Newsroom follies

2009-06-02T09:19:00.002-03:00

Here's how I was going to start this post:

"A developer in Charlottetown has jumped into the Nova Scotia election fray. With a new poll out showing that the NDP may be headed for a majority, Richard Homberg has warned Nova Scotians that they businesses may leave the province if they elect an NDP government."

Now Homburg's remarks, as reported on CBC Radio, were ridiculous. He said that he had left Winnipeg on principle after an NDP victory in Manitoba, but then added that his opinion was not political.

Turns out, though, he made the comments last fall. So they were reported, newscast after radio newscast, as the word of a successful (if out-of-province) businessman warning of harm to the economy if the NDP were elected -- just as that began to seem like a possibility for the first time.

What I want to know is, how do you make a mistake like this? Where did the tape of Homburg come from? It's obviously not like a reporter just went out and interviewed him. Somebody had to dig it up from somewhere.

A big-time screw-up.

Speaking of screw-ups, it was pretty amusing last week to listen to newscasts about the guilty plea of a teenage girl on a weapons charge. In newscasts on the hour she was 18; on the half-hour she was 17. Back and forth, back and forth, all day long.

Uncyclopedia

2009-05-29T16:22:00.002-03:00

I just discovered Uncyclopedia (while doing research for a comic I'm writing).

Uncyclopedia calls itself "the content-free encyclopedia anyone can edit." I can't wait til it starts turning up in research papers by clueless students.

From the entry on Canada:

The vast majority of Canadians are actually invincible superheroes, invested with a variety of superpowers ranging from looking at TV or computer screens for entire weeks in winter to understanding the rules of hockey using telepathy and superhuman intelligence. For this reason, Canadians don't need any form of government or even a military, since every single guy next door can either stop bullets in mid-air or cut through buildings using energy blast from their eyes, but usually they end up playing video games on their computers most of the time since no nation is crazy enough to attack such an intimidating and powerful country as Canada.

40 is the new 20: The story behind the song

2009-05-27T10:30:00.004-03:00

Guest post today from my friend Steven Morris, who co-wrote an original song for a feature film being released this weekend. Take it away Steven:

On May 29, the totally independent English-language Canadian feature 40 is the new 20 opens in Montreal (AMC Forum) and Toronto (AMC Yonge & Dundas 24). It's directed by Montrealer Simon Boisvert, with a cast including Claudia Ferri (Hard Core Logo, Mambo Italiano), Pat Mastroianni (Degrassi), Bruce Dinsmore (The Myth of the Male Orgasm) and newcomer Diana Lewis, who also produces.

Best of all (well, maybe not best), a song I co-wrote runs under the closing credits. Here's the story of how that happened.

My old friend André Potvin was on the crew for 40 is the new 20, and he kept telling me it was one of the best experiences he'd ever had, after years of working on cookie-cutter films made to feed cable TV.

André has an innate sense of taste. If he said it was a cool film it probably was. Then he dropped the bombshell.

“Steven, I told the director that you and I wrote a song for his end credits and that we would send him a demo.” Tip your hat to André because this bit of hubris was a blatant lie. But it did set a bright orange fire under our you-know-whats.

André and I had once played lots of music together. Two guitars (one blonde the other black), two voices and two rock and roll frames of mind. But a few years ago I had been forced to stop playing because of arthritis. The musical path we’d been on split and I spent time licking my wounds, singing with others and trying to learn different instruments.

This song project represented an opportunity for renewed collaboration. But there were a few problems: songs don’t grow on trees, the shit box digidesign/pro tools home studio I had purchased two years ago had to be figured out, and André and I had to re-learn our lost art of relating as musicians, and as human beings.

Potvin had put together a muscular, highly rhythmic chord progression and a good sketch of an arrangement. But when I asked him what his melody was he stared at me with bland expression which screamed out, “Heeelp meee!”

For six weeks it was a slugfest. I read Simon’s taut script twice, Potvin threw melodic line after line I came up with back in my face until he started coming up with some of his own. Finally, we unraveled the needlessly complex software and delivered the song.

And Simon bought it! That was nearly three months ago.

Being the neurotic I am that gave me plenty of time to doubt André's opinion of the shoot. I was convinced our music and names would be identified with something of unbridled absurdity. That I would have to learn to repeat the line, “Oh, that must be some other Steven Morris, I have never heard of André Potvin.”

Or reverse anxiety: The song we wrote was horrible and Simon didn't know any better. More than one person whose opinion I respect had said, “it is a pity to see you wasting your spare time on this song Morris.” My older brother referred to me as “a head case.”

Finally, the date came for the crew screening. After seeing the film, I beamed with pride. And for all involved, not just me and André.

It is not such an embarrassment to have cradled existential doubt. Just making a film is a miracle. Making a good film is an act of God. Some say magic is involved. Regardless, Simon Boisvert made a good film. And that ain’t easy. It takes lots of courage.

If you have ever been on a web site to meet people, or speed dating, or been invited by friends for dinner and – surprise – there is a single person of the opposite sex there. you will relate to this film. There are legions of us.

40 is the New 20 is a contemporary tale. The actors deliver. The story grabbed me.

Some will loathe it, others love it. Some will be indifferent. But this is a call for you to buy a ticket and respond. Morris, you need your head read, that film is a stinker. Morris, you were right, it hurt me too. Maurice, désolé, peux pas te dire si je suis pour ou contre, car je me suis endormi durant la projection.

Go all out, post a comment on the Facebook group I created called, “40 is the New 20-The Feature Film.”

Please go see it. Hit me with your best shot.

Imagine Our Schools

2009-05-14T13:54:00.003-03:00

I have a lot to say about Imagine Our Schools, the process that brought in architects from Toronto to advise the Halifax Regional School Board on its use of facilities.

One of the main tenets repeated at meeting after meeting by the consultants was that students could not learn properly in small schools. Small schools simply cannot deliver the curriculum.

Today, the Halifax Chronicle-Herald reports:

A Halifax County school has been named world literacy champion in an international reading competition.
Students at Shatford Memorial Elementary School read an average of almost 609 books each between last November and April to win the WOW Reading Challenge and claim the World Literacy Championship trophy and banner.

This would be the same Shatford Elementary that the consultants would like to see closed. Because, of course, actually looking at results was not part of their mandate. And I guess reading lots of books isn't necessarily part of the curriculum.

Stay tuned.

Open letter to Yak Communications

2009-05-08T11:56:00.004-03:00

Dear Yak,

Maybe you are overcompensating. You see, last time I failed to notify you when my credit card expired. You happily continued to provide long-distance phone service for months, then cut me off and took forever to reconnect me (operating under the assumption that I had switched long distance carriers).

My credit card is set to expire again. So you start calling me 6 weeks ahead of the actual expiration date, telling me you have an urgent message, that my card has expired, and that I need to contact customer service immediately.

I call customer service. Maybe they have the wrong date? I get a friendly rep who says no, we have the correct expiration date on file. Not to worry. Just contact us when you get the new card.

Fine. So stop with the auto-dialler every couple of days already. It's even more annoying than the exhortations to renew my sub to a mag after two issues.

Tobias Beale and Paul's Hall on CBC's Maritime Magazine

2009-05-06T11:37:00.006-03:00

My half-hour radio documentary on Tobias Beale is now online here.

Tobias is a music teacher who lives near Halifax. And he tells great, great stories.

In some ways, it's been a rough year for Tobias. He's spent 15 years devoted to teaching music, and he finds himself doing it in an environment where it really doesn't seem to be a priority.

After spending 8 years teaching band at his local junior high, Tobias found himself out of a job. Today, he's a half-time band resource teacher who travels from school to school. It's crazy and fun, but not the same. He's also bought an old church hall, and is using it to revitalize a locally focused music culture, and to provide a performance space for teens.

Bonus feature: I've posted the raw audio of the first interview I did with Tobias, when I started working on this documentary several months ago. We were chatting upstairs at Paul's Hall, while three local teen bands prepared for a show downstairs.

The file runs about 25 minutes. Click to listen, or right-click to download and listen later.

The interview covers all kinds of fascinating stuff I couldn't work into the final show. I especially like Tobias's answer when I ask him why kids need performance spaces when they all have MySpace and Facebook pages to promote their music. That comes about three quarters of the way through.

Enjoy, and please share your comments by clicking the "comments" link below.

Bankrupt news

2009-05-04T11:03:00.004-03:00

Bizarre story about writers and a new magazine on the early editions of CBC Radio's "World Report" today. (I assume it was dropped from later editions, because it's not part of the latest show available online.)

The story began with the assertion that these are tough times for writers. Well, maybe. Certainly they are tough times for journalists, whose papers are being shut down all over the place. I've rarely been busier than I am now -- and I know plenty of other writers who aren't hurting either.

So let's assume the story means these are tough times for staff journalists.

It then goes on to say that there's a new magazine from Vancouver that has sprung up to give emerging writers the opportunity to publish. It's called Bankrupt, and -- here's the hook, I guess -- it doesn't pay contributors.

Now, wait a minute. Did the story mean these are tough times for literary writers? Times are always tough for literary writers.

A look at the magazine's website indicates that it's mission is "showcasing the latest stories from Vancouver writers."

The magazine launched about six weeks ago.

I'm trying to figure out how any of this is national news.

Timely? Magazine launched six weeks ago.

Innovative? Writers have been putting up with the same old crap ("We don't pay but you get exposure" forever.)

National in scope? It's an online Vancouver litmag.

Recession? Yes, I guess this is it. The mag is called Bankrupt, and we are in a recession.

Therefore it is news that a) a little online journal with a clever name has launched, doing the same thing little online journals have always done, and b) it features emerging literary writers -- many of whom not only don't mind being kicked but will line up, ask you to kick them and then thank you for it. In any kind of economy.

The Globe's online letters page outdoes itself

2009-05-04T09:27:00.005-03:00

It's badly designed and hard to read at the best of times. Today, it's even more fun:

The only retailer that matters?

2009-05-01T12:41:00.001-03:00

This is a weird sentence, from a Marina Jiménez story on Mexico City in today's Globe and Mail:

Parks are closed and plazas empty. Malls, museums, cinemas and shops are shuttered - as well as most restaurants and cafés, including some of the country's 259 Starbucks outlets.

Farewell King

2009-04-15T10:54:00.001-03:00

King Kaufman, one of the most intelligent sportswriters around (even if he didn't write about hockey enough) calls it quits.

The day the greyhounds came to Musquodoboit Harbour

2009-04-14T11:26:00.003-03:00

My 5-minute radio documentary on greyhound enthusiasts in the Maritimes is now online here.

Every few months, Greyhound Pets of Atlantic Canada arranges for a truckload of ex-racing dogs to come to the Maritimes where they will find new homes. Greyhound lovers call the day Hound Day, and they converge at GPAC founder Jeanette Reynolds' house in Musquodoboit Harbour, near Halifax, to meet the new dogs, and get them settled. And some of them will go home with new pets they have just met.

The documentary features a United Church minister with 9 greyhounds, an explanation of how to hold a greyhound's collar so the dog doesn't take off on you, and an interview with Jeanette, who has 5 greyhounds and 2 jack russells.

It doesn't feature any barking, since greyhounds are such quiet and easy-going dogs.

Twitter 101

2009-04-03T11:50:00.003-03:00

Here is my March 2009 Gone Surfin' column, which first appeared in the South Shore Clipper. If you have wondered what this Twitter thing is all about and whether it's for you or not, read on.

If you want more on Twitter, read my story in the Globe and Mail on fiction writers using the site in innovative ways.

And for past columns, visit the Gone Surfin' archive (which has some gaps, because I have not done a great job keeping it up to date).

All a-twitter

Spring is here, and the birds are twittering in the branches. Meanwhile, the media is chirping loudly – about the latest hot web site, Twitter.

Curious to find out what the fuss was all about, I signed up. (If you want to follow me go to http://twitter.com/PhilMoscovitch.)

Twitter is a site that asks users a simple question -- “What are you doing?” -- and gives them a maximum of 140 characters in which to answer.

Now, I have to tell you that I resisted Twitter for a long time. I just could not see the usefulness of a site that allowed you to write what you're doing in 140 characters or less.

And the first Twitter postings I looked at were no help. They said things like “Going to have a bath.” Really? Did I care? No.

But soon after signing up, I realized that – like with many interesting technologies – users have created their own culture and extended its uses beyond the site's original intentions. Very few people seem to actually tweet (that's another word for a Twitter post) about what they are doing at the moment. News organizations tweet breaking stories. Writer Arjun Basu uses Twitter for fiction: over 500 140-character short stories so far. Politicians like Elizabeth May post information that's both personal and political. Tech companies release the latest on their products through Twitter. People of all stripes post interesting links.

Like Facebook, Twitter creates interlocking networks. You may start off following close friends. Then someone forwards one of your postings to their followers (this is called re-tweeting). Friends of your friends start following you. Soon, you're drawing the attention of people you know nothing about.

Unlike Facebook, you don't have to be friends with someone to see what they post, and vice-versa. Unless you deliberately make your settings private, or use direct messages, all your posts and replies are public. They can even be seen by people who are not Twittering.

If you do wind up following a number of people, don't try to keep up with everything they have posted. One piece of advice I read was to treat Twitter as a stream. You can dip into it and see what's there at any given time, but don't try to keep up with all the tweets the people you follow are posting. It's a surefire way to drive yourself crazy and to waste lots of time.

You will probably also find it annoying to visit the Twitter website every time you want to check in. But you don't have to. There are plenty of third-party tools that allow you to tweet, search and read posts without going directly to the site. I use a widget for the Opera browser that stays open on the edge of my screen. There are also programs like Twhirl (for Windows), Twitterific (for Macs) and Twadget (a vaguely obscene sounding Vista sidebar gadget). Plus you can always post and receive updates on your cellphone.

If you plan to post links in Twitter, you will need a URL-shortening service. Many links are so long that posting them would take up a large chunk of your 140 characters. Fortunately, there are dozens of websites that allow you to paste in a Web address and then convert it to one that is substantially shorter. Then you can copy and paste the new URL into Twitter. Readers who click on it will be taken to the original site whose address you shortened.

I typically use TinyURL, SnipURL and is.gd (pronounced “is good).

Is Twitter fun? Sure. Useful? It can be. Will it change the world? Not likely. But it does offer an interesting window into what others are doing and thinking. It may seem unfamiliar at first, but its very simplicity, makes it easy to catch on.

One final word: Twitter does have its own conventions that may seem confusing. So, very quickly, RT means re-tweet (forwarding something someone else has posted). @ is the symbol that appears at the start of a posting to indicate it is a public reply. And # is the equivalent of a blog tag – a mark that sets off a keyword to make searching easier.

Now you're all set to add some tweets of your own to the spring chorus.

Short Twitter fiction

2009-03-24T16:16:00.002-03:00

My story on writers creating short fiction on Twitter is online at The Globe and Mail.

It features interviews with Arjun Basu, and Clare Bell (author of the Ratha series), and also links to Jason Camlot (aka jcsped) and Darryl Parker (aka Twirled View).

Basu, writes super-short stories. He calls them twisters, and they run exactly 140 characters. He's got more than 500 so far, and has attracted the interest of an agent who, he says, is confident he can get him a book deal.

Bell's a former engineer who used to race an electric Porsche -- now there's something you won't find on most writer CVs. She's posting a novelette in tweets, as of March 14, and also archiving the pieces for readers who are jumping into the story in the middle.

A high-quality post?

2009-03-20T11:11:00.002-03:00

Here's a tip for the copywriters: The word "quality" sucks. And it sucks big-time.

Let's start with the way the word sounds, shall we? Qua-li-ty. It's soft. All those vowels. It slides easily off the tongue, without much impact. It slips away at the end. Not like, say, "top-notch."

And quality is a word that implies its opposite. It doesn't really say anything about your product or service. Unless you are peddling something really low-end, in which case "value" is your sole selling-point, you'd better hope to hell that you have quality.

Your readers should assume that quality is what they are getting. Pointing it out to them risks making it sound like you have no other fine points to emphasize. By saying that you offer a "quality service," you are saying that you can't really think of anything else to say about it. This would probably indicate that the quality is not all that great. When I see a gift shop that offers "quality souvenirs" I assume I am in for shelves filled with cheap crap made in China.

Now, quality in some contexts is OK: "Precision-engineered Swiss quality." Here we are talking about a very specific quality -- not quality in general.

"High quality" is really no better than "quality" on its own. What, are you trying to make sure your readers don't think you're plugging low-quality items?

So use "quality" with caution, if at all. It's like "fascinating" and "unique" in that way. But those are posts for another day.

Thanks for spending some quality time with me.

The what de what?

2009-03-13T09:28:00.002-03:00

Anyone hosting a national CBC Radio program ought to be able to pronounce Caisse de dépôt so it doesn't sound like Kass de deep-o (or worse, "the Kass").

Who needs experts?

2009-03-06T21:37:00.001-04:00

Yahoo answers is so useful.

Design... please!

2009-03-06T15:43:00.001-04:00

Why are film production companies so prone to fancy, unusable design when it comes to their websites? Like this one. Yeah, "Desk" -- that's an intuitive button.

NovaLUG members speak

2009-03-04T12:23:00.002-04:00

A month or so ago, I did a script and clip segment on LEGO enthusiasts for the local CBC Radio morning show, Information Morning.

It featured three members of NovaLUG, the Nova Scotia LEGO users' group, discussing their LEGO obsession and showing off some of their creations. The clip features Owen Grace, a computer specialist whose passions are sailing and LEGO, and who is heavily into LEGO robotics, and Chris and Katherine Campagna, who talk about how LEGO has taken over their home. My thanks to them for being so generous with their time, and for showing me around the incredible display they built at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic.

Click here to listen.

Green gadgets

2009-03-04T12:13:00.003-04:00

When I see green gadgets like this one, a water-powered clock, my first thought is to admire how ingenious it is and to have hope that we will somehow figure our way out of our various environmental crises.

My second thought is what a complete waste of time this is. What's the greenest gadget? No gadget. Or an old gadget that you keep using. The water-powered clock runs on water and lemon juice, with the lemon juice being replenished every 5-7 weeks. "Save on batteries" says the ad copy, and, at first, it's an appealing thought.

But wait a minute. How much battery power does a bedside clock consume? Mine runs on one AA, which I have changed once in the last four or five years. Actually, I changed it for a battery that was too dead to run anything else, but has been running the clock for months now.

Replacing my current clock would wind up costing me more in lemons than I spend on batteries, plus there's the environmental effect of unnecessary manufactured goods (not to mention the carbon footprint from lemon transport).

Freedom comes to Aberystwyth

2009-03-03T17:06:00.002-04:00

Thirty years ago, the town of Aberystwyth, in Wales, banned Monty Python's Life of Brian. Now, the ban has been rescinded and Mayor Sue Jones-Davies has organized a screening of the film, which two former Python members will attend.

And who is Sue Jones-Davies? Well, she played Brian's girflfriend, Judith Iscariot, then went on to a career in film and theatre. These days, in addition to serving as mayor, she also teaches yoga.

Attention English teachers

2009-02-25T10:30:00.002-04:00

Want to talk about poor metaphorse? Introducing Ms. Beyoncé Knowles, and her song "Single Ladies":

"Cause if you liked it then, you should have put a ring on it."

If he liked her finger? Or have engagement and wedding rings migrated to a new part of women's anatomy?