Paul's Place Omelettery | 2211 Granville Street | Vancouver

The English language is in trouble, dear reader.  Not grammar - that arcane set of incomprehensible rules governing the architecture of speech is just as disregarded now as it has ever been.  The foul odour of corruption is wafting to us from the building blocks of the language itself: words.  Made up solely of Latin, German and things Marlon Brando said in his sleep, English was, for years, as comforting and rigid as religion, with the dictionary as its bible.  Just like that good book, once upon a time the dictionary was seen as the final word; if Merriam and/or Webster said that something was so then it could be used anywhere, be it in Scrabble or the blazing put-down of another man's mother.  For a brief, shining season the glory of the word was like devouring fire on the top of the mount.  Then we began to stray; popular usage superseded common sense and soon the peasantry thought they could just make up words without the help of Heintje, Caesar or Marlon. 

Give It a Name

You know what bothers me about the internet?  Well, a lot of things, but you know what's near the top of a list that includes Armand White and advertisements offering me physics for my grim, yellow teeth?  Miserable, hairy-knuckled trolls hiding their nastiness behind the internet's warm, huggable cloak of anonymity.  For the last few months I've been waffling over whether or not to continue allowing anonymous comments on this site; after all I receive few enough, and most of them are funny jabs from my very own Topo Gigio (He knows who he is).

All the same, reading this brief article on NPR (will open a new browser window) and a longer piece in the Boston Globe (will open another browser window) has finally swayed my opinion and I've decided to drop anonymous commenting on principle.

I love hearing your opinion, The Internet, but now you've got to own up.  Except you, Topo.  I look forward to seeing comments from reallyBIGshoe@somewhere.com.

And don't worry, faithful readers, I haven't forgotten about you while busily curtailing your freedom.  I've been out of town for a few weeks, but plan on having some new articles up soon.

Brown's Social House | 809 Douglas Street | Victoria

Back in 1991, when U2 were still releasing albums worth listening to, Bono wailed on about a young woman who was “even better than the real thing”, which the band said was meant to reflect the 90s obsession with instant gratification.   It’s been ten years since I bought my last U2 album and I’m more impressed with the 130 square metre bedroom Bono added to his Dublin home than I am his recent musical output, but I’ve got to admit that the little Irish devil had a point.  As it turned out the 90s were only a signpost on the road, ever since then the cultural landscape looks like it has been trampled by the Persian army as led by a metrosexual, yuppie, Xerxes.